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In memory of Lola Salines (1986–2015),

founder of 404 éditions and editor of this series,

who lost her life in the November 2015 attacks on Paris.

Thank you for believing in me.

—Cube Kid

Eeebs was a naughty little kitten. Very

naughty, in fact. He never listened to his mother.

She always told him: “Don’t go too far into the forest, Son.

It’s dangerous. And if you ever see a purple light …

run away. Run as fast as you can.”

But Eeebs loved exploring the woods. He didn’t think the

forest was dangerous at all. No, it was an

interesting place. Interesting and mysterious.

He went there at least once a week—like today—along with

his closest friends, Tufty and Meowz. The three of them

had found a new meadow to play in. The meadow was ﬁlled

with all kinds of beautiful ﬂowers. They were

racing to see who could pick the most.

Eeebs watched Meowz and Tufty ﬁght over a lovely blue

orchid. At last, Meowz tripped Tufty, who went

tumbling into the grass. Then, she hurried to pick the

orchid before he could get back up.

“Hey!” Tufty hissed. “Not fair!”

“Well, you never said no tripping,” she said.

Tufty only ﬂattened his ears and glared at her.

She presented her colorful collection, fanned out

like a rainbow. “Look at all these ﬂowers,” she said, beaming

like the square sun. “I guess that means I win, huh?”

“Whatever,” said Tufty. He threw his clump of dandelions

onto the ground. “It was a stupid game, anyway.”

“I agree,” said Eeebs. “I’m bored. Maybe we should

just head back?”

“You can’t be serious,” said Meowz.

Tufty stepped forward. “We’re not gonna get caught again,

okay?”

“I know,” said Eeebs. “But—”

“Look,” said Tufty. “The only reason our parents don’t

want us playing here is because they’re jealous. They

can’t stand us kittens having so much fun.”

“He’s right,” said Meowz. “I mean, have you ever seen

any zombies around here? The truth is they just

cooked up that

story to keep us closer to home. Easier to make us do

chores that way.”

Eeebs sighed. Maybe they were right. And anyway, the

forest really was the best place to play in. There were so

many mysteries just waiting to be discovered.

“Fine,” he said. “How about we go play some hide-

and-seek?” The other two patted him on the back.

“Now you’re talking!”

“Yeah! That’s the Eeebs I know!”

But Eeebs had no idea how much this suggestion

was going to aﬀect him. He could have seen those dark rain

clouds in the distance as a sign of things to come. Or

the chilly breeze that blew through the meadow just then …

He didn’t, though. Eeebs was just thinking about how

fun this day was going to be. A day of playing and

exploring. And misbehaving.

The three kittens began their new game.

“I think you should go ﬁrst,” Tufty said.

“Why me?” Eeebs asked.

“Because this was your idea, silly.”

Eeebs nodded. He didn’t mind. He liked being it way more

than he liked hiding. And he knew the real reason why

Tufty wanted to hide: he liked sitting around, doing nothing.

He was a bit out of shape and already out of breath after all

of that ﬂower collecting.

As Tufty lumbered oﬀ into the bushes, Meowz smirked at

Eeebs.

“I almost feel sorry for you,” she purred. “I know the

ultimate hiding spot. You’re gonna be searching

forever.”

Eeebs ﬂicked his tail. “I like a challenge.”

A real challenge. He wasn’t going to be

disappointed…

He waited for Meowz to scamper oﬀ before starting to

count.

He reached twenty, called out, and began the hunt. Eeebs

bounded through the hills, through the trees. He peeked in

every crevice, every clump of tall grass. He raced up and

down all the nearby valleys.

But he never found them, not even Tufty, who was

normally easy to ﬁnd. Were they hiding together?

Yes,

Eeebs thought.

Meowz must have felt sorry for him

and taken him into her fantastic hiding spot.

He searched and searched to no avail. Perhaps twenty

minutes passed, then thirty. The ﬁrst drop of rain hit

Eeebs square on the nose. It started pouring soon

after.

Grandpa said it was just going to sprinkle,

he thought.

This

is some sprinkle! At this rate, I’ll need a boat!

What

happened next sent a shiver down his spine. He walked

through some tall ferns … and found himself standing at the

edge of a mountainous biome.

I’m

. . .

on the other side of the forest.

He had never been this far away from home before. He

was so focused on ﬁnding them that he hadn’t paid

attention to his surroundings. He was lost.

“Hey!” he called out. “I give up! Guys?”

His thin voice was drowned out by the torrential rain.

Even if his friends were nearby, they wouldn’t have been

able to hear him. And they weren’t nearby. Eeebs was

sure of that. They were smart. They never would

have gone this far.

I’m smart too,

Eeebs thought.

I’ll ﬁgure something out. I

can just follow the edge of the forest. Yeah, as long as I stick

to the edge, I’ll end up home on the other side. Right?

He paused.

But what about Tufty and Meowz? Are they

looking for me right now? Or are they still waiting for me? I

can’t just leave them. What should I do?

The rain grew heavier. Eeebs began shivering.

He decided to go back into the forest and look for them. It

was the right thing to do. With a sinking feeling

in his heart, he turned back to the mountains one last time.

A ﬂash of lightning suddenly lit up the gray expanse,

revealing … wolves.

They were moving slowly toward him. His heart sank

even deeper. If he had seen them, they must’ve

seen him, too. Then he heard a howl.

His heart was no longer sinking. It was pounding

wildly, jumping into his throat.

So he started running. He ran fast, very fast. Eeebs had

always been good at running, but he’d never run faster

in his life. Trees blurred past. Blind panic set in. He

had no idea where he was going and didn’t care, as long

as it was away from those howls and snarls. Yet no

matter how fast he went, the sounds stayed behind him.

Wolves could run fast, too.

Very fast.

Eeebs dashed into a thicket. Cries echoed through the

trees. He could hear the wolves snuﬄing, sniﬃng,

searching for his scent. That was when he noticed a

purple glow coming from farther in the thicket. He

turned away and crept closer to the light.

To a kitten like him, it looked like a screen of

violet water …

ﬂoating in the air … framed in black stone. For a

moment, he forgot about the wolves completely. He

didn’t understand what he was looking at. He had never

seen anything like this before. Well, the humans made

things that resembled it called … doors, but this was

something diﬀerent. Whatever it was, it was very

old. It seemed as if the forest had grown up around the

strange object.

Was this the purple light his mother had warned

him of? It didn’t seem that dangerous. The light

glowed in a calm way. Gentle, even. For some reason,

Eeebs felt he should approach it. It was almost as if the

doorway was calling to him, inviting him to come closer.

And why shouldn’t he? By now, those mangy mutts

were just outside the thicket. Anything was better than

facing them. And the light was so warm. Warmer than

any sunlight. Warmer than the furnace he had slept on that

time he snuck into a farmer’s house. As Eeebs drew closer,

the heat washed over him, removing the rain’s

damp chill.

Then, three wolves burst through the

undergrowth.

They stopped upon noticing the light. Their snarls

turned to whimpers, soft whines. After some

hesitation, they began growling again, their red eyes ﬁxed

on Eeebs as they slunk slowly forward. He was an

easy dinner, after all. Those wolves must’ve seen far

worse than a violet glow.…

Eeebs backed up, right next to the light. Heat waves

blurred his vision. He felt the light behind him,

pulling him closer. He thought about his

friends. He hoped they’d make it back safely. He was

sure they would. Meowz always knew how to ﬁnd her

way home.

That was his last thought before

diving into the screen of light.

His vision became blurry, and suddenly he saw only

darkness.

Eeebs would never be a normal cat again.

His days of climbing trees and swatting at

butterﬂies were over. Stories would spread among the

villages, stories of a strange kitten with blue fur and

violet eyes.

He hadn’t listened to his mom.

He’d ventured into the Nether.

Eeebs felt nothing for several seconds. Nothing except

his pounding heart. Bit by bit, the darkness gave

way to a deep red expanse. It was like an

enormous cave. Eeebs couldn’t see the sky anymore,

and everything was gloomy. Pillars of

twisted stone surrounded him. He’d never seen anything

like it. Far away, bright orange streams ﬂowed down

into a sea of the same color.

He recognized this orange stuﬀ. There was a pool of

it in the plains not too far from his home. It was very hot,

like liquid ﬁre. On cold days, the kittens sometimes

went near that pool to warm up. Of course, his mother had

scolded him for hours after ﬁnding him there.

That must be why it’s so warm here,

Eeebs thought. He

turned around, back to the violet screen. He had moved

a great distance by crossing it. Even if he didn’t know

how, he was certain of this. So that meant he could head

back at any time. But those ﬂea scratchers were

probably still waiting for him. If he went back through now,

they would tear him to shreds.

No,

he thought.

I’ll stay for now. I’m safe here. I only need

to wait for a while, and …

Just then, a single wolf emerged from the

portal. It was very close. Eeebs could smell its rotten

breath and the musky scent of its damp fur. At ﬁrst he only

stared into the wolf’s red eyes, and it stared back.

Neither of them moved. Total silence. Then its

confusion wore oﬀ. Jagged fangs and a low growl

shook the kitten into action.

That action, of course, was bolting across the dark

red stones.

He must be really hungry,

Eeebs thought as he jumped

across a shallow chasm.

Why follow me here? Why couldn’t

he have just forgotten about me and gone after a rabbit?

zoomed around a column of glowing yellow rock.

Rabbits

taste better, don’t they?

Eeebs’s path soon came to an end. He skidded to a halt

on a vast ledge. On each side was a dizzying drop. He

wasn’t afraid of heights, obviously. He was a cat. From

countless days of tumbling and tussling in the forest, falling

from the tallest trees, he could survive any drop.

He always fell feetﬁrst, but landing on his feet in an

ocean of lava wouldn’t do much good.… And that was all

he could see down there.

A ﬁery orange sea.

The wolf scrambled onto the ledge and stopped,

knowing it had cornered its prey. Eeebs backed

up against the edge of the abyss. His future seemed

grim. Burned? Or eaten? If he died now, though, he

couldn’t explore this place. And it had to be

explored! To a curious little fuzzball like him, it

was the most fascinating place he had ever seen.

Forget the forest. Forget the swamp and the ravine. This

world would become their new playground. Still, he

had to deal with this tail-chaser, ﬁrst.…

Suddenly, he remembered something that Tufty had

taught him. When chasing prey, a wolf could get pretty

careless. The hound surged forward, and Eeebs waited

for the right moment. Then he dashed to the side with

unnatural speed—even for a cat. The wolf’s fangs chomped

down on thin air. That was also the only thing supporting

it now: thin air. The wolf had leapt right oﬀ the

cliﬀ. It yelped and turned as it fell, disappearing

over the edge. When Eeebs approached and looked down

into the lava far below, there was nothing.

Poor wolf,

thought. Sadness washed over him. He had only wanted

to get away.…

Which reminded him: How had he moved so fast?

He realized he was trembling. His heart was beating

furiously, and he was suddenly exhausted. Eeebs

moved away from the edge and sank down onto the ground

with a sigh. Only an hour ago, he was gathering ﬂowers.

And now …

What rotten luck,

he thought.

This is the worst day of my

life.

An icy chill danced up and down his back.

And it’s not

over yet. I still have to ﬁnd my way home.

That portal would be easy to spot, of course, but it

wasn’t in sight. Eeebs had run fast, for a long time, and

lost his sense of direction. All of a sudden this new world

seemed much, much larger and much more

ominous. Despite the waves of heat, he couldn’t help

but feel a little cold. He curled up into a little ball, pulled

his paws in, and wrapped his tail around him.

What should I do? I’m trapped in this gigantic cavern, and

I have no idea where to go. But … I’m smart. Right? I’ll

ﬁgure something out. Right?

The kitten looked around with big, fearful eyes, eyes

that shimmered like pools of deep green water.

What will I do now … ?

What will I do now?

While Eeebs trembled in fear, he started to hear

mysterious noises. They seemed far away. In the

shadows.

He could hear piglike grunts, horrible slithering

noises, and something that almost sounded like crying.

With each new sound, his eyes grew wider and wider. He

shrank back against the side of a small cliﬀ, his back

arched.

Whatever I do,

thought Eeebs,

I can’t panic anymore. I’ll

only get more lost. I have to think back, retrace my steps.

That’s my only way out.

Suddenly, the crying seemed very close. He slowly

turned his head, afraid of what he might see. That was

when he noticed it: a kind of small white cloud,

ﬂoating in the air. Floating directly toward him.

No, it wasn’t a cloud. It had a … face! Whatever it was,

it looked very sad. It really was crying. A few light

blue tears were streaming down its cheeks.

The ghostlike creature shrieked when it noticed the

kitten. Eeebs sprang back, tail straight up and fur raised,

as if electriﬁed. “Leave me alone!” he hissed.

The creature paused and gazed down at itself. “Do I really

look so terrifying?” The creature sniﬄed. “I must. Even

this poor little magma cube can’t stand the sight of a

monster like me.”

It started crying again—fountains of sparkling blue

tears, this time.

“Magma cube?” Eeebs peered cautiously at the

bizarre creature. “I’m a kitten.”

“A … kitten?” Its closed eyes shifted with suspicion,

ever so slightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kitten before.

You must have come from a nether fortress, yes?”

“A forest, actually.”

“I don’t quite understand.” Another sniﬄe.

New tears formed in the corners of its eyes. “Oh, that’s why

I don’t have any friends! I never understand anything

about anything!”

Eeebs stepped forward. His curiosity had taken hold. He

had so many questions. Besides, it didn’t seem like this

thing had any intention of eating him.

“Why are you crying? It’s a little strange, isn’t it? I

thought ghosts liked to scare people.”

“Ghost?” The white being ﬂoated down to the kitten’s

level. “I’m a ghast. And I’m not strange!

Every ghast is sad about something. Some of us

cry because there are no ﬂowers here. Others, because it’s

too hot …”

“Well, why are you sad?”

The ghast turned away. “Because I … I have no

friends. My whole life, that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

The puzzled kitten ﬁxed his eyes on the ghast. Surely,

this was the most interesting creature he had ever

met. Why couldn’t he have found that portal sooner?

“I’ll be your friend,” Eeebs said.

“What? Oh … I get it. A joke, yes?”

“Not at all,” Eeebs said. “To be honest, I don’t

have any friends either. At least, not here …”

The ghast turned back to face him. “Really? You

mean it?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I? I’ll introduce you to my

other friends back home, too.”

The ghast spun around in midair. “How can this be? Am

I dreaming?”

“I doubt it,” said Eeebs, glancing again at this strange new

world. “Dreams are never this crazy.”

The ghast nodded. He even smiled.

Although neither of them had any idea, this was a

special moment. It was the ﬁrst time in the

history of Minecraftia that a ghast had

experienced happiness. Their friendship would be

documented in books and discussed by scholars and

sages for generations to come.

The ghast

(whose name was Clyde)

ﬂoated near a chunk of

glowing yellow stone. “This is glowstone,” he said. “It

lights up areas that don’t have any lava.”

“Lava,” said Eeebs. “That’s the orange stuﬀ, right?”

“Correct.”

For the past hour or two, the ghast had explained his

world to Eeebs. A guided tour of the Nether. The kitten

absorbed all of this information, from the zombie pigmen

to the blazes that soared above their heads.

“I wonder if I could bring some glowstone back home with

me,” said Eeebs. “It’s pretty. I think my friend—”

“Ornk-ornk.” A zombie pigman bumped into

him with a grunt. Eeebs gasped and darted behind the

ghast.

“Don’t worry,” said Clyde. “He won’t hurt you,

remember?”

“Right.”

The undead pigman stared at the strange companions

before wandering away. Clyde went back to the tour. Of

course, the kitten’s curiosity seemed inﬁnite. Every

time the ghast answered one of Eeebs’s questions, the kitten

asked another.

Why is there so much lava?

Why are zombie pigmen zombies?

Is there such a thing as a normal

pigman?

Only stuﬀ like that. But those endless questions never

annoyed Clyde. The kitten could have gone on forever,

and he wouldn’t have cared. For the ﬁrst time in his life, the

ghast was helping someone. He was making a diﬀerence.

He had a real friend.

At some point, a chorus of grunts and shouts became

audible. Far away, across the lava lake, an army of creatures

had gathered: zombie pigmen, magma cubes, blazes, wither

skeletons—even an enderman.

“Wow!” said Eeebs. “I’ve never seen so many

monsters before! What are they doing?”

“Causing trouble,” said the ghast. “You see that tall

one? The one with the purple eyes?”

Eeebs nodded. “That’s an enderman, right? I’ve seen

one before.”

“Well, endermen never come here,” said the ghast.

“Except for him. His name is EnderStar.”

“So why is he here?”

“From what I understand, he was exiled from his

homeworld. Even the other endermen grew tired of his

crazy ideas.”

The kitten’s ears perked up.

Wow. This is way better than

playing hide-and-seek, he thought. An army of monsters! An

enderman who got kicked out of his own world! What next?

“Can we get closer?”

Clyde paused. “I’m not so sure that would be such a good

idea, Eeebs.”

“Why not? Don’t you want to hear what they’re

talking about?”

“Well, all right. But don’t let them see you, okay? They

won’t care about me, but if they notice you . . .”

Eeebs nodded. “How about we hide on that ledge

over there?”

With that, the unlikely duo snuck closer, up a hill that

overlooked the army. Eeebs peeked out from behind a

single block of netherrack.

Clyde ﬂoated nearby. The monsters below could no

doubt see him, but none of them paid any attention. He

was a monster, after all.

Beyond that, everyone was too busy listening to

EnderStar’s speech. All eyes were focused upon that

enderman, who stood in the middle of the crowd.

“We must take back what is rightfully ours!” he

shouted, before pacing back and forth. He waved a ﬁst

in the air. “We will crush them all!”

“Rarg!” A zombie pigman raised his golden sword.

“Crush dem awl!”

The other monsters joined in. The air erupted into an

angry chant.

“Crush dem arl!”

“Crush dem awl!”

“Crush dem ull!”

The monsters fell silent when EnderStar waved a hand.

“There’s a portal not too far from here,” he rumbled.

“Our ﬁrst attack will commence from there. This is a

practice run, nothing more. Once you see how easily

their town crumbles, you will understand the

speed with which we can reclaim our world!”

A huge wither skeleton stepped forward and cut the

air with his massive sword. “Blah, blah, blah! Talk

boring! When me get to chop things?”

Another zombie pigman raised his head and screamed.

“Urggrgagrrgr! Me want smash!”

“Rargragr!” One of the blazes trembled with rage.

“Gragragagzzzt!”

EnderStar chuckled—a slow, smoldering sound

that echoed across the Nether. “Yes!” he boomed. “That’s

the spirit! Follow me, my brothers! Let us show them

our might! Let them bow before us!”

A chorus of shouts shattered the air. The army took oﬀ

at once, slithering and staggering across the dark red

ground. Their cries faded bit by bit.

“I don’t understand,” said Eeebs. “What’s going on?

They’re attacking? Attacking who?”

Clyde looked away. “Well, um …”

“Tell me!” Eeebs shouted. “I’m your friend, aren’t

I?”

“I … I’m afraid they’re on their way to your world.”

No,

Eeebs thought, blood freezing in his veins.

No way.

Why would those monsters want to live there? Don’t they

like this place?

Another frightening question spawned in

a dark area of his mind.

“Wait,” he said. “He mentioned a portal. Was he talking

about the thing I came through?”

“Most likely,” said Clyde.

“So, they’re attacking a city nearby?”

“A human city. Your kind will be safe.”

“But what if they burn everything?” Eeebs suddenly felt

weak. His head spun. He stumbled. “I have to get

back! I have to warn them!”

Clyde sighed. “It’s dangerous, Eeebs. Your mother

would want you to be safe. You know that.”

Eeebs leapt forward, his eyes ﬁlled with anger.

“What if it was your family, huh? Would you just sit

here? You want me to …”

As his voice trailed oﬀ, Eeebs collapsed. He felt so

weak, drained, helpless. His limbs were like jelly.

What was happening to him?

Clyde zoomed down. “Hey! Eeebs! What’s wrong?”

“I … don’t know. It’s like I’m …”

“Climb onto me,” said the ghast. “I know someone who

might be able to help.”

“I … can’t.”

“If you want to help your family and friends, you

will.”

Eeebs took a deep breath. An image of his mother

ﬂashed through his mind. And Tufty. Meowz. All of them.

With the last of his strength, he pushed himself up

and climbed up onto the ghast.

Seconds later,

everything went black.

She hovered over a brewing stand, deep in

concentration. With one bottle of water and one

nether wart, she created an Awkward Potion.

Blub, blub, blub. The potion burbled to life on the stand.

After adding a dollop of magma cream, she made a

Potion of Fire Resistance.

Of course, Eldra didn’t stop there. It would take only a

pinch of redstone dust to increase the potion’s

duration from three minutes to eight. She did just that,

carefully measuring the amount. More bubbles and smoke

this time—even a little ﬂash of ﬁre. But the extra eﬀort

was worth it.

That will do nicely,

she thought.

Now I can go hunting for

more blaze powder in the fortress nearby. Those silly blazes

won’t lay a spark on me. Afterward, I could even take a lava

bath.

The witch giggled to herself.

Just for fun.

Then she frowned.

But I shouldn’t go without at least one

Potion of Regeneration. Who knows what else I might run

into?

She opened up her ingredient chest and rummaged

around. Spider eyes … puﬀerﬁsh … blaze powder …

no, this

won’t do at all,

she thought.

Now, where did I put that ghast

tear?

Sometimes, when a ghast cries, one of its tears will

harden and crystallize; this is an essential

ingredient to make a Potion of Regeneration.

Unfortunately, this is a rare event, so such tears are

highly prized by witches like Eldra.

And she was totally out.

By some fabulous twist of fate, however, the answer to

her problem arrived right at her iron door.

Clang, clang!

“Who is it?” the witch called out, still searching through

her storage container.

“Me. Who else?”

Odd,

she thought.

Clyde sounds less drooping than usual.

In her excitement, Eldra whirled around, zoomed over

to the door, and peered through the window. Sure

enough, it was him. Was that the hint of a smile on

his face? He almost looked … happy. The witch

blinked, as if she had just seen a ﬂying cow.

She hit the button to open the door then stepped

outside. “You couldn’t have come at a better time,” she

said. “I need to make a—”

“Listen, I really need your help,” Clyde gushed.

Eldra sighed. “Oh, how many times must we go over this,

Clyde? Let’s stick to our original deal. After you’ve given

me a thousand of your tears, I will be your

friend. You only have eight hundred and eighty-

eight tears to go! See? You’re almost there.”

What the witch had done was indeed a little cruel. The

ghast was so desperate to make a friend that he’d agreed

one year ago to give Eldra one thousand of his

crystalized tears. In return, she would oﬃcially be his

friend. But not really. Not in her heart. How could she

befriend a monster like that?

On the other hand, was it really so bad to trick the

ghast like this? It was nicer than killing him. Since

their tears were so valued, ghasts were close to

becoming an endangered species. So the witch wasn’t

completely bad. Especially compared to the likes of

EnderStar.

“It’s not about that,” said Clyde. “It’s about my

friend.”

Eldra burst out laughing. “You?” She giggled again

at the thought. “Have a friend?”

“As unbelievable as it may seem, yes. And he’s …

hurt. Or sick. I don’t know.”

“Where is he?”

The ghast touched down on the ground. “Right here.”

The witch approached. She laughed again upon

seeing the unconscious kitten resting on top of him.

“I won’t even ask how you two met,” she said. “And what

exactly is wrong with—”

She froze. Her eyes grew wide all of a sudden. “It

can’t be! This kitten … has the mark!”

“Mark? What mark?”

Eldra shook her head. “Oh, you foolish ghast! Why

didn’t you bring him to me sooner? Hurry! Give him to me!

There’s no time to waste!”

She cradled the limp kitten in her arms then dashed

inside her hut.

Clyde ﬂoated over to the window and watched Eldra set

the kitten down on her blue wool mattress. The witch

performed a series of gestures over his motionless

body.

That was when he noticed Eeebs’s size. He had grown

slightly—his claws, too. His fur now had a blue

sheen. Was he changing? Why? Was that normal?

Did kittens really grow so fast?

“It must have something to do with his illness,” the

ghast sighed. He felt so helpless. He could only ﬂoat by

the window while the witch performed her magic.

Eeebs will be okay,

he thought.

She’ll know what to do. I

don’t know what happened to my friend, but she’ll know

what to do.

Eeebs slowly opened his eyes.

He was lying on a soft surface. He had slept on something

like this a while ago: the farmer’s house. Eeebs liked

houses. Real houses, anyway. There were so many

comfortable things to sleep on in a real house. Stoves.

Beds. Carpets. Much better than the hollowed-out log

that served as his home.

No, he was wrong. How could he think something like

that? His home was a real house, too. He remembered

the smell of salmon, a smell you’d never ﬁnd in a house like

the farmer’s—and suddenly, he thought of his

mother, of his friends. His home.

He had to get back. Had to warn them. Save

them.

Eeebs sprang up. He was in a stone hut made of … he

couldn’t remember the word. He tried to recall what Clyde

had taught him. Netherrock? Netherstone? No, quartz.

Nether quartz. That was it. Where was Clyde,

anyway?

Just then, he heard a voice coming from somewhere

outside. A woman’s voice.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m delighted to

see you crying again,” the woman said. “What would I

do without your tears? Only eight hundred and

eighty-seven left, by the way.”

“I just hope he’ll be okay.”

The kitten’s ears perked up.

Clyde?

Eeebs leapt oﬀ the bed and through the window. The ghast

was just outside, facing a strange woman he had never

seen before. Both turned to face him.

“No way!” said Clyde. “You’re already awake!”

“Nearly.” Eeebs rubbed his face with his paws. “So …

what happened?”

“Something extraordinary,” said the witch.

The kitten gave her a confused look. “And who are you?”

“This is Eldra,” said Clyde. “She’s a witch. She’s the

only one I could think of who could help you. And she

did.”

“Honestly, I didn’t do much,” she said. “All it took was a

bit of milk, that’s all.”

“I don’t understand,” said Eeebs. “Will someone just

tell me what’s going on?”

Eldra nodded. “You’ve been … chosen.”

“Chosen? By who?”

“The Nether.”

Clyde ﬂoated closer. “The Nether found you, Eeebs. It

called you! Your arrival here was no accident.”

What? That just doesn’t make sense,

thought the kitten.

Am I dreaming?

He shook his head. “What would this world want from a

kitten like me?”

“Purity,” said the witch. “Innocence. Courage.

Love. You must understand that the Nether isn’t an evil

place. It’s ﬁlled with darkness, but it isn’t evil. However,

many of its denizens are. The Nether needed a

champion, and when it couldn’t ﬁnd one here, well …

it looked elsewhere. It found you.”

Eeebs staggered. It felt like his body was …

diﬀerent. Well, maybe he was just drowsy—still a

little weak. He ignored these thoughts.

“A champion for what?”

But as he asked this, Eeebs realized that this was the one

question he could already answer himself.

“EnderStar wants to rule the Overworld,” said Clyde.

“He’s terrible!”

“And if that happens,” Eldra continued, “the Nether will

be in a great deal of trouble. The End, too. You see,

EnderStar won’t stop until he gains control of all

three worlds.”

“I think I get it.” Eeebs paused. Was he getting

smarter? He normally wouldn’t have been able to grasp

this kind of stuﬀ. “The Nether wants to stop him before he

gets too powerful, right?”

The witch smiled. “Exactly.”

“But … even if I want to help,” said Eeebs, “what can I do?

I’m just a kitten.”

As Eeebs said this, Clyde got that look again. It was the

“I don’t want my friend to freak out, so I’m not going to say

anything”

look.

Eldra wasn’t as considerate. She smirked, looking him up

and down. “Not anymore.”

Eeebs followed her gaze.

His black fur had a vibrant blue sheen. His claws

were a bit larger, thick and black. And sharp. He was

also bigger and stronger—nearly as big as an adult

ocelot.

Eeebs held out his paws, examining them, moving each

digit. They were almost like human hands. “What …

happened to me … ?”

“It’s not like it’s a bad change,” said Clyde defensively. “I

mean, think of it this way: At least you’ll never have to

worry about wolves again.”

The witch placed a hand upon his shoulder. “The Nether

changed you. Strengthened you. And granted

you … powers, you could say. Once you learn to

control them, the minions of EnderStar will fall before

you like turnips during a harvest.”

The ghast managed a slight grin. “I think ‘nether

kitten’ has a nice ring to it, don’t you?”

Eeebs stared down in horror. His mind spun and spun.

It was just too much for him. What would his mother

think? His friends?

He would be an outcast.

He would become an exile …

just like EnderStar.

Again, Eeebs thought of home. His vision blurred as

tears ﬁlled his eyes. He wiped them away with a clawed

paw and nodded at his two friends. “Thank you,

Clyde. Thank you, Eldra.”

Then, he took oﬀ. The Nether’s dull red terrain

streaked past him.

“Wait!” Clyde called out. “Eeebs! There’s still a lot

you need to know!” Eeebs ignored his friend’s cries.

He had wasted enough time.

A crazy nightmare,

he thought, leaping over a narrow lava

stream.

A hallucination brought on by too much stress. Or,

maybe this is really happening; maybe the Nether really did

turn me into some kind of weird monster.

He tore across

a ruddy stone plain.

It must have, because he could sense the portal’s

location across all that twisted stone. He pounced up from

ledge to ledge and raced through every plateau, until the

glowing violet door was directly in sight.

He didn’t know much about the Nether, what it was

capable of, or what kind of magic it had placed upon

him.

Was it a curse? A miracle?

Right now, there was only one thing he knew for sure.

He was now a pawn in a deadly game … and he had no

choice but to “play.”

Armed with this sole truth, he cut away his fears and

doubts—cut away as if they were just cobwebs in a

mineshaft.

Just hold on,

he thought, sprinting toward the portal.

Mom … Meowz … Tufty …

I’m coming!

The lava. The inky gloom. The hot netherrack

underneath his paws. All of these things the kitten ignored

as he ran toward the portal.

He was too busy trying to make sense of it all. The

Nether: a dark world, a ﬁery world, a world that should

have nothing to do with kittens. But for some reason

this world chose a kitten to protect it. Perhaps a

kitten was a better choice than a zombie pigman.

Then this world called that kitten, pulling him from his

own world—the bright and tree-ﬁlled Overworld.

Later, the Nether granted him special abilities to help

him ﬁght the hordes of darkness.

That kitten’s name was Eeebs.

And Eeebs was trying to escape the Nether.

The intense heat no longer gave him any trouble. The

clouds of smoke, which once made his eyes water, were

nothing to him. Instead, those eyes were now ﬁxed on the

warm light radiating from the portal.

Portal.

His friend Clyde had taught him that word. This portal

was a doorway, linking two worlds. It looked like a

screen of violet energy, surrounded by a great ring of

black stone.

Eeebs couldn’t help but think about Clyde.

I’m sorry,

he thought.

Please forgive me, Clyde, for

running away without listening to you. I’ll come back. I have

to, because I have to thank you. And that witch, too. She

removed whatever illness I had.

Eeebs forced himself to stop thinking about his new

friends.

I’m sure they understand.

Eeebs had to go through that portal. He had to leave

this world and return to his own. Suddenly, it was the

only real thought in his mind.

No.

There was another thought.

Monsters, from this world, were headed to his own

world. To attack, to destroy. To claim the

Overworld as their own.

Of course, Eeebs had to warn his family and friends

before that happened.

He slowed down as he neared the portal. Its

enormous obsidian frame towered before him. All he

had to do was step through, as he had before, and he’d be

back.

His heart froze.

He feared what he might see upon returning to the

Overworld. Maybe the monsters had already …

A frightening image spawned in his mind.…

No! There’s no way something like that could happen!

Those pigmen are too slow!

He pushed such thoughts away, but another replaced

them.

Enough,

he told himself.

I can’t waste any more time.

He leapt through the purple mist.

As expected, everything went black. He nearly closed

his eyes. He was so afraid of seeing something

horrible. But the darkness became …

Shades of green, brown. No ﬁre, no ashes.

Nothing was burning. He stepped out of the portal into the

thicket where the wolves had almost caught him.

The trees were still there, along with the grass and the

ﬂowers, and suddenly he realized just how nice the forest

smelled. He had never thought about it, until now. Actually,

even the swamp smelled better than the Nether. That

place was horrible for a kitten’s nose.

That was when he caught another scent. A familiar

scent, like rotten mushrooms.

That was the stench of a zombie pigman. Yuck.

He sniﬀed and sniﬀed, detecting more scents in the air.

That ashen smell was from a blaze, and that bitter smell no

doubt came from one of those magma cubes.

They were … here.

Somewhere. Somewhere close.

Maybe just beyond that large hill.

Relief washed over him. The monsters were stupid and

slow—they hadn’t yet reached his home. It was far from

this area, on the other side of the forest.

His mind was working like never before. The monsters

also hadn’t reached the village, where the villagers lived. It

was even farther away, in the plains past the forest.

So since Eeebs was so fast now, he could reach his home

before the monsters.

Of course, he did want to know what those monsters

were up to. Why were they still here, in the forest?

Shouldn’t they have attacked the village by now?

What could they be doing? He hadn’t the slightest idea,

which meant … he had to ﬁnd out. He nodded to

himself.

No matter how much the Nether had changed him, it

couldn’t remove his curiosity.

With his nose as a guide, Eeebs began heading in the

direction of the monsters. Slowly, at ﬁrst, until soon he was

bounding over mushrooms and zooming through

tall grass.

Eeebs climbed up a hill. With every step, the stench

of monsters grew stronger, and their snarls became

louder. When Eeebs ﬁnally reached the top, he crept low

through the grass and peered down the other side.

His pulse quickened. There they were.

All of them.

From blazes to wither skeletons. A snarling,

growling mass of undead and ﬁery beasts.

And in the middle of them all … EnderStar. The

kitten’s fear, however, soon evaporated. In fact, he had to

keep himself from laughing.

He crept closer to get a better view.

The monsters, they were … staggering around,

stumbling into one another. At one point, a zombie

pigman fell over into the grass.

Then a second pigman tripped over him, went ﬂying,

and knocked over a third.

It was a ridiculous sight: an army of

fearsome-looking mobs, bumbling around in a

daisy ﬁeld.

Their distant screams caught his attention. Eeebs

perked his ears up to catch what they were saying.

“It hurts!” screamed a zombie pigman. “Mee

eyes!”

A blaze hissed and sparked. “Massssshter …

me no see!”

“Urgggg!!!” A wither skeleton fell over, dropping his

stone sword. He pointed a bony ﬁnger toward the

sun. “Yellow square thing! Up there! Too …

bright!”

Another wither skeleton was chopping at a tree.

“Mee do good, mashter? Look! Mee chop!”

A zombie pigman joined the skeleton.

“Mee too, mashter!”

The wither skeleton’s sword seemed to be stuck in the

tree. “BosSsH, mee sword! The enemy is so strong!”

The huge enderman let out a long sigh. “That’s

a tree, you idiots!!”

The wither skeleton glanced at EnderStar and then back

at the tree.

“How can me know, bossh? Mee eyes don’t work right

now!”

The zombie pigman kept chopping at the tree. “Mee

want chop things! So … mee chop!!”

A great many zombie pigmen writhed on the ground,

hands covering their eyes as they screamed.

“Urggh! Mashter!! Make yellow square go away!”

“It burn! It burn! Rarrrggg!!”

“Bossh! You say attack village very easy! Holp mee!!”

“Arggg!! Villagers use magikk on us!”

“Mashter, mee cannot chop if mee cannot see!”

There were lots of shouts like these.

Eeebs only watched in disbelief.

It reminded Eeebs of a scary time, when he’d gone

playing in a cave. There had been a big spider in there, and

it had chased him for a long time. The spider had run

fast, Eeebs remembered. Faster than him. So fast, the

spider had caught up to Eeebs by the time he exited the

cave. Eeebs had thought he was a goner. All he could

hear was that horrible squeak. And then there were

those glowing red eyes.

However, when the spider stepped out into the

sun, it froze. The spider just sat there, right in front

of Eeebs, fangs dripping and eyes gleaming. It couldn’t

do a thing, because it couldn’t see.

That was how Eeebs had learned that spiders were

blinded by sunlight. Spiders lived in caves. Their eyes

were used to the darkness.

With that in mind, Eeebs now understood why these

Nether mobs couldn’t see. They shared the same

weakness.

The Nether was, in many ways, similar to a cave. When

he ﬁrst arrived there, Eeebs assumed it was just one

gigantic cavern.

Even though the Nether had areas ﬁlled with lava, it

was still pretty dark in most places. So these monsters had

lived their whole lives in that gloomy place. Their eyes

were used to the darkness. Just like the spiders.

Wow,

he thought.

I never could have understood that so

easily before. I’m getting smarter, huh? Maybe that’s one of

the things the Nether did to me? Made me more intelligent?

Concealed in the tall grass, Eeebs kept spying.

EnderStar seemed angrier and angrier.

The enderman looked up and shook a ﬁst at the sky.

“I can’t believe this! All of my planning …

ruined by the stupid sun!!”

A zombie pigman walked up to the enderman. He was

wearing a golden object on his head.

“Mee lord? Maybe we go now … and come back …

when no yellow square thing.”

EnderStar patted the pigman on the head.

“You’re a clever one,” he said. “That’s why I’ve

made you a captain.”

“So …” The zombie pigman paused. “We go back

now?”

“Of course.” EnderStar’s voice crackled like lava.

“Gather the troops. Take them back. This was only

meant to be practice, anyway. I wanted you all to get

some training before we … attack the real village.…”

The pigman nodded. “Yesh, mee lord.”

Eeebs squinted, focusing on the zombie pigman. He

seemed diﬀerent from the others. He wasn’t

completely stupid, at least.

So that pigman was EnderStar’s assistant? Also …

what was that thing on his head? Eeebs continued

observing the mobs from his hiding spot. His ears were

raised up in the direction of the army.

“Anyway, today was not a total waste,” said

EnderStar. “We’ve learned something useful. Next time,

we’ll come right after the sun sets.”

“Of coursh, mee lord. So … you go? I take pigmen and

ﬁre things back now? We go home?”

“Yes,” said the enderman. “See you back at the

fortress.”

With that, EnderStar vanished into thin air.

POOF!

Eeebs had encountered endermen before. He knew they

had this ability, so he wasn’t too surprised.

EnderStar also said something about a … fortress.

Fortress.

Clyde had mentioned that word before. He thought

Eeebs had come from a “nether fortress.” So that must

be the monsters’ … home?

Eeebs needed to speak with Clyde about this. After he

talked to his friends and family, he had to return to the

Nether.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Eeebs looked at the

mobs again.

Now in charge of the other mobs, the smart

pigman turned to his comrades. “Hey! All you! Shut

up! Stop crying! We go home!”

Loud grunts and snorts ﬁlled the air.

“Home better anyway,” said a wither skeleton. “Mee

no like this place.”

“Bzzztrg … t-too c-c-cold here,” a blaze sputtered.

“G-go h-home w-w-warm. Mee happy! Argg! Bzzzt!”

A magma cube shivered and hopped in agreement.

“But we no see,” said a wither skeleton. “We no see!

So … how we know where go?”

“I can see,” said the smart zombie pigman. He

pointed to the golden object he wore on his head.

Eeebs had seen humans wearing such things to protect

themselves in battle. So did that allow the pigman

captain to see in the sunlight? He really was

smarter than most zombie pigmen.

“Follow me,” he said. “I take you home. All you. Use

ears. Me sing song. Okay?”

“Thanks, Rarg! Mee so cold!!”

“Okay! We follow you, Rarg!”

“Yes!! Lead the way! Get mee out of here!”

With that, the captain pigman

(whose name was

apparently Rarg)

began singing.

“Ninety-nine villager noobs in da town! Ninety-nine

villager noobs! Smash one down! Into da

ground!! Ninety-eight villager noobs in da town! Ninety-

eight villager noobs in da town! Ninety-eight villager noobs

…”

As he bellowed, the captain trudged oﬀ in the direction

of the portal. The other monsters followed. Some

began singing along:

“Ninety-seven villager noobs in da town! Ninety-seven

villager noobs! Smash one down! Into—” Rarg

stopped, turned around.

“Shut up! Only I sing! If others sing, how you know who

to follow?”

“Rarg so smart!”

“Okay! We shut up!”

Rarg turned back around and began singing and marching

again. Eeebs watched them go.

Their little attack failed,

he thought.

They must have

arrived very early in the morning, just before sunrise. Then

the sun came up and blinded them all.

And they were stranded. Helpless. Helpless underneath

that overpowering light.

That means … the Overworld still has time. Maybe a lot of

time.

But … when they do come back, they’ll be more prepared.

Maybe, when they return, they’ll all have those golden

things on their heads, like Rarg.

Eeebs didn’t realize, of course, just how well hidden

he was. In fact, as he remained motionless in the grass,

he had become nearly invisible. Without another

thought, the kitten jumped down the hill.

After he moved, he became fully visible again.

Fifteen minutes later …

Eeebs was standing outside of the grove.

It was where all of the cats lived. He could hear playful

meows in the distance.

Was that … Tufty? Meowz? He crept through the

grass.

He couldn’t believe it. He was actually home? And … he

could see them now, in the distance.

His friends.

They were playing some kind of game.

“Hey, not fair!” hissed Tufty, glaring at Meowz. “You

always cheat.”

“I didn’t cheat,” she said. “You never said no

peeking.”

“It’s always like that,” said Tufty. “You never said

this. You never said that. I miss Eeebs. At

least he played fair.…”

Meowz looked down at the ground, her eyes full of

tears. “Me too.”

Eeebs froze. They were still thinking about him. They were

worried about him. But what would they think when they

saw him? His fur was blue now.…

He stepped forward anyway.

“I wonder where he is … if he’s still alive.…” said

Meowz.

“If you ask me,” said Tufty, “he went into that thing.”

“Hmm. Let’s go looking for him again.”

“Sure, but do you have any idea where that black

thing is?”

“It’s called a nether portal,” said Eeebs.

Tufty and Meowz turned to him. The look on their faces

was indescribable.

A piercing sound came from Meowz. “Eeeeeee …”

Tufty stepped back. “Who … is …” Then, the two seemed

to recognize him. “Eeebs?”

“Eeebs?” Meowz cautiously stepped forward. “Is that

… really you?”

Eeebs nodded.

“What … happened to you?”

“I’m the one who should ask,” Eeebs said.

“You went in,” said Tufty. “Didn’t you? You actually …

went into that place?”

The kittens knew stories of the Nether, although they

didn’t call it by that name. Stories about the black door.

The glowing purple light. Old stories. Legends telling

how the bravest and strongest cats once went

through that door. And never came back.

Eeebs, however, had come back.

Maybe he had been lucky to meet Clyde, who taught him

all about that world. Or maybe it wasn’t luck. Eeebs had

thought nothing of talking to Clyde. But an older, wiser cat

probably wouldn’t have tried talking to a ghast. An older,

wiser cat would have simply run.

Just as Eeebs had ignored the legends and the warnings

from his mother, he’d also ignored his common

sense—which generally encouraged running away

from giant white ﬂying things that cried and shot balls

of ﬁre from their mouths.

Who knew there could be a ghast who was actually kind?

That was why Eeebs had survived.

As Tufty and Meowz stood before him, in awe, Eeebs

told them about all his adventures. What happened to him.

How he changed. How the Nether had chosen him.

“Chose you for what?” asked Tufty.

“To help ﬁght against that army,” said Eeebs. “I guess.”

Then, Eeebs told them about how an enderman was

planning to take over their own world.

“So let me get this straight,” said Meowz. “That place, the

Nether, chose you? To be some kind of warrior? And you

have like … special powers and stuﬀ?”

Eeebs nodded again. “Basically, yeah.”

“Wow,” said Tufty. “That’s too cool, huh? Special

powers? Fighting bad guys? And honestly, Eeebs,

you don’t even look that scary! Where do I sign up? I

wanna help you!”

“By the way, what kind of powers do you have, anyway?”

asked Meowz.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Eeebs. “I mean, Clyde and his

friend were about to tell me more about the change, but

… I ran oﬀ before they could. I just wanted to ﬁnd you

guys.”

“Awww.” Meowz’s eyes grew even more tearful.

“Thanks.”

“A good friend,” said Tufty. “Us too. We looked for you

everywhere, you know? We haven’t really slept since you

disappeared. Anyway … I’m just glad you’re back.”

Eeebs sighed. “Me too, but … at some point, I’ll have to go

… back there.”

All three of them looked down at the ground. Then, a

cry broke the silence.

“Eeebs?”

It was his mother.

Eeebs’s mother carefully approached the three kittens.

She looked like Eeebs

(the old Eeebs, anyway),

only bigger.

Eeebs only swallowed, his eyes wide.

“Oh boy,” whispered Tufty. “Things are gonna get

crazy.”

Meowz joined him in cowering.

“This isn’t good,” she murmured. “She scolded Eeebs for

days just for going too close to the ﬁre lake, over in the

plains. How do you think she’ll react to this?”

His mother was now quite close, and as she noticed her

son, she couldn’t hide her astonishment. “Eeebs

Cottonpaw Thistlewhiskers, what on Earth

happened to you?!”

“Mom, I can explain,” said Eeebs, his ears lowered,

tail between his legs. “You see, there’s this—”

“Enough!” she hissed. “You’ll explain this to your

father!”

She picked him up by the scruﬀ of his neck and

hauled him oﬀ to their cat burrow.

Tufty and Meowz exchanged

worried glances.

For half an hour, Eeebs stared at the ﬂoor as his mother

scolded him. Of course, he tried telling her about what had

happened. But she wasn’t hearing any of it.

“I told you not to go near that door!” she said. “Cats

have no business in there!”

“I’m okay, Mom. Really. Maybe what happened to me

is a good thing.”

“Good?” She turned away. “How can it be good? You

look so diﬀerent now. Your fur, it’s … it’s … it’s

blue!”

Eeebs rubbed up against his mom.

“Hey. I’m sorry for going in there, but … monsters really

are going to attack our world.”

“Well, what can we do about it?” she said. “Let the humans

deal with it. And those … villagers.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Eeebs said. “I mean, the

mob army is huge. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

This made his mother even more worried. “And what

exactly are you supposed to do?”

Eeebs sighed. “I don’t know, Mom. But there must be a

reason. That’s what Clyde said. He’s a ghast. Oh,

and his friend, Eldra. She’s a witch. She said—”

“Ghast?!” his mother yelled. “Witch?! Young man,

you won’t go near those things again! Do you

understand?”

“But they’re my friends.”

“Friends?! No, you won’t be making friends with

monsters!”

“Not all monsters are bad, Mom.… Clyde is really,

really nice.”

His mother was really upset now. “Just wait until your

father hears about this! You’re lucky he’s out hunting

right now!”

“Mom, please just calm down.…”

It went on like this for some time. Like most mothers, she

was a bit overprotective.

His father eventually came back, carrying some

salmon. He was a good hunter.

When his father noticed Eeebs, he dropped the salmon on

to the grass ﬂoor of their house.

“Son? What … happened?”

And so, Eeebs explained all over again. Thankfully, his

father wasn’t as upset. He almost seemed proud of

Eeebs.

“The Nether chose you?” he said. “I don’t like it, but …

this must be important.”

“What are you saying?” said his mother.

His father ﬂicked his tail, thinking for a moment. “I just

think we should try to learn more about this.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this!” His mom

circled back and forth.

“Honey, we can’t do anything about it. What happened

… happened.”

His mother sighed. Then, there were several cries

outside.

“Monster! Run!!”

Eeebs glanced at his mom and dad

then dashed outside.

A crowd of cats and kittens scattered in terror.

A witch walked out from behind a massive oak tree.

“Eeebs!” she shouted. “Eeebs! Are you there? Oh,

there are so many kittens, but none of them are the one I’m

looking for! At least, I don’t think any of you are Eeebs.…

Blue fur? Purple eyes? No, no, no! Where is he?!”

The few remaining kittens squealed and ran oﬀ to their

parents. But one kitten remained.

Eeebs slowly walked toward the witch.

The other felines crouched in their hiding places,

watching Eeebs approach what appeared to be a hideous

monster.

(Actually, to them, Eeebs appeared like a

monster as well.)

“Eldra!” Eeebs said. “How did you get here?!”

“Same as you. I simply went through the portal,”

Eldra said. “I’m from the Overworld too, you know!”

Suddenly, Eeebs’s mother and father ran up to him. “Get

away from that thing, Son! It’s dangerous!”

“Dangerous?” The witch giggled. “Yes, I suppose I am

dangerous! But only when I have potions, and I’m all out.”

“Enough!” said Eeebs’s father. “Leave our son alone!

He will not associate with the likes of you!”

The witch cackled—an eerie, high-pitched sound. This

caused some other kittens in the distance to begin crying.

After the witch stopped laughing, Eeebs sighed.

“Mom, Dad, meet Eldra. Eldra’s a witch. But she’s

really, really nice. She helped me when I got sick.

I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for her. So you should

thank her.”

His parents peered at Eldra.

“You don’t have to praise me,” said Eldra.

A bat ﬂew past her. She grabbed it. “Ooooo! How

lucky! I need bat wings!” The witch stuﬀed the

squeaking creature into her belt pouch.

His parents backed away, making low growling

sounds, pulling Eeebs along with them.

Eldra continued. “Actually, your son is special. I’m

certain he would have survived, even without my help!”

“No way,” said Eeebs. “I was so sick. My stomach was

roiling, and I passed out, and—”

“Stop it, Eeebs! Just stop!” His mother was

beginning to weep again. Then she wiped her face with a

paw and turned to Eldra. “Is it true? You …helped our

son?”

Eldra nodded.

“Who wouldn’t help a lost kitten? Besides, he’s got the

mark!”

“Mark? What do you mean?” asked Eeebs’s father.

“I can tell you what I know,” said Eldra. “But ﬁrst …let the

rest of your kind know: I wish you no harm. In fact, if you

want to survive …you’d best listen to me.”

And so Eeebs’s parents ﬁnally calmed down.

The rest of the felines eventually crept back—but

cautiously, slowly, very slowly.

At last Eldra began to tell everyone the history of

Minecraftia.… How an innocent kitten came to

befriend a nice ghast named Clyde … And how an evil

enderman, exiled from the End, rose to power in the

Nether . ..

After perhaps an hour of talking, Eeebs said his goodbyes to

everyone he knew. His mother and father were in tears.

“In case we get attacked,” said his father, “we’ll dig a

small cave nearby. That way we’ll have a place to run and

hide.”

Eeebs nodded.

“Good idea. And don’t cry, huh? I’ll be back soon! I

promise!”

Then Eeebs turned to his two best friends. Strangely,

Tufty and Meowz didn’t seem upset. In fact, they seemed a

bit happy.

Am I just imagining things?

Eeebs thought.

How can they

not be sad? Even I want to cry right now!

“I wish you didn’t have to go, Eeebs,” said Meowz. “I’ll

miss you.”

“Same here,” said Tufty. “I’m so sad. So sad. But

hey, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”

Eldra the witch smiled at Eeebs’s mother and patted her

head.

“Don’t worry,” Eldra said. “Your son just needs some

training. I’ll do my best. He’ll be back soon. I promise.”

With that, Eldra and Eeebs took oﬀ, back to the

portal.

Five minutes later, Eeebs already missed his parents.

And his friends. He hadn’t even been home for more than

two hours.

But then, his heart grew lighter at the thought of

seeing Clyde again. Upon entering the Nether, Eldra led

Eeebs back to her stone hut.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Eeebs. “As you said, you

come from the Overworld. So why do you have a

house in the Nether?”

The witch sighed. “Well ﬁrst, it’s called a hut.”

The kitten looked up at her, waiting for her answer. The

witch continued.

“Brewing,” she said. “Nether wart. Blaze

powder. The Nether has a lot of things I need. So, I

decided to build a second hut here.”

She opened the door. “Now, let’s begin.”

Eeebs followed Eldra inside. She walked over to the

cauldron. The purple liquid bubbling within it smelled

strange yet delicious at the same time.

“Mushroom-bat stew,” she said. “Care for some?”

Eeebs’s stomach grumbled as the witch said this.

How sad,

Eeebs thought.

I didn’t even eat anything while I

was at home. I should have grabbed some salmon . . . or a

puﬀerﬁsh. I’m not picky!

“Sure,” he said at last.

The witch set a steaming bowl of stew on to the ﬂoor. The

kitten lapped it up hungrily. Actually, it wasn’t that

bad.

“Now,” said Eldra. “Before we start, let me tell you: You’re

not the only strange creature walking around

Minecraftia.”

The kitten’s ears perked up.

“You mean there are others like me?”

Eldra shrugged. “In a way.”

“Like what?”

“Well, during a full moon, one out of a hundred spiders

that spawn are granted special powers similar to yours.

The Dark Blessing, it’s called. Some can heal

their wounds quickly. Others are impossible to see or

possess incredible strength. And then there are

creepers, who become much stronger when struck by

lightning. Pigs struck by lightning turn into zombie

pigmen. And where do you think I came from? I used to be

a villager, you know … until I went out in that

thunderstorm.…”

Eeebs scratched his chin. “Is all that related to the

Nether, like me?”

“Not exactly. Still, there are many unusual creatures

wandering around. So don’t feel alone.”

“Thank you.”

Eldra smiled. “As for your powers . . .”

“Yes,” said Eeebs. “You’ve mentioned that before. What are

they?”

“Well, ﬁrst, you’re probably already aware that you can

think more clearly.”

Eeebs nodded. “I’ve been able to ﬁgure stuﬀ out on

my own way easier than before.”

“And your senses are sharper, correct?”

The kitten nodded again. “I can sense nether portals

and even see in the dark better than before.”

“Of course.” The witch gazed into his purple eyes.

“From what I’ve read, the spider’s Dark Blessing also

aﬀects you, in limited form. If you stand still, you’ll be

nearly invisible. I’m not sure what you have to do to

heal faster, though. Beyond that, you’ll ﬁnd that you have

the powers of every mob native to the Nether.”

“What does that mean?” asked Eeebs.

“For one, you’re all but immune to ﬁre. Including

lava.”

Lava,

Eeebs thought.

That’s that ﬁery orange stuﬀ!

“You mean I won’t be hurt by it?!”

“Not at all,” said the witch. “You can swim around in it

all day if you want, and it won’t even singe your whiskers.”

At this point, the kitten’s curiosity was overﬂowing. He

didn’t have to fear the Nether anymore! He could explore

as much as he wanted!

Wait,

he thought,

how can I think about exploring at a time

like this?!

“What else?” he asked.

“Hmm. You can spit ﬁreballs the same way a ghast

can, and I’m guessing you have a Wither eﬀect, like all

wither skeletons. And a zombie pigman’s strength.

Perhaps you can even ﬂy like a blaze? But you’ll have to

learn how to do all of that from the mobs themselves.

Of course, I believe you have even more special

powers, but I must research more. I haven’t had much time,

since I had to go looking for you.”

“This is so great!” said Eeebs.

“Indeed. When you come to understand your strengths,

you’ll basically be a boss monster, like the ender

dragon or the wither. Cool, huh?”

“What are those?” Eeebs asked.

“Oh, never mind.”

The kitten sighed. “Whatever. I can’t wait until Clyde

teaches me how to shoot ﬁreballs. Where is he, anyway?”

The witch looked down at the ﬂoor. “Um . . .”

“What?” The kitten crept forward. “What is it? Where

is he?”

“Well, it really hurts to say this, but . . .” The witch

turned around. “Shortly after you left, Clyde …joined

EnderStar’s army.”

Eeebs stepped back, slowly. The words repeated in his

head, over and over.

Clyde.

Joined EnderStar’s army.

Clyde.

A happy

ghast.

A nice guy.

Helpful.

Cries at the slightest hint of bad

news.

And he joined …those monsters?!

“I …I don’t get it.… Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Eldra. “He tried following you, but

ghasts can’t ﬂy very fast, you know. He couldn’t even ﬁnd

the portal. I’ve never seen a ghast shed so many tears.

He kept asking me where the portal was, how to ﬁnd you.

I’m not a tour guide! Then he just ﬂoated away.”

A single tear ran down the kitten’s cheek. “I …can’t . . .

believe this.…”

“Be strong,” said Eldra. “There must be a good reason

why he did something like that. Believe in your friend.”

Eeebs looked up at Eldra again. “I have to go ﬁnd him!”

“Of course you do. You should stay here ﬁrst, though,

and train with me …but you’re not going to do that, are

you?”

“Not a chance,” said Eeebs, shaking his head. “I

owe him.”

“Then you’ll want to head to the nether fortress. It’s

that way.” She pointed out the window. “You can’t miss it.”

Eeebs glanced out the window, then back at Eldra. The

witch gave him a blank look.

“What? Are you expecting me to ask you to stay here? I

know you by now, Eeebs. You’ll go. You’ll do anything to save

your friend. There’s simply nothing I can do.”

“You’re right, just . . .”

“What?”

“Do you have any advice for me? It’s not like I’ve ever

been to a nether fortress.”

Eldra took out a book from her item chest.

“The best piece of advice I can give you is to write in

this every day. It’s called a diary. Within its pages, you

can record your experiences and any important

information.”

“But I don’t even know how to write! Or spell. Or read. I’m

a kitten.”

“Wrong,” Eldra said. “That’s another one of your

abilities. I forgot to mention that.”

“But even if I know how to write, I can’t hold a quill!”

Eldra handed the kitten a quill. “Haven’t you noticed your

paws are a little diﬀerent?”

Eeebs glanced down at his paws, held each one in front of

him, and then grabbed the quill.

“Unbelievable.”

“What’s so hard to believe?” asked Eldra. “This is

Minecraftia.”

“Right. So …book, quill, anything else?”

“You’re smart. You’ll ﬁgure out the rest. And do bring

Clyde back. He owes me more tears.”

“Count on it.”

Once again, Eeebs took oﬀ without much hesitation.

He had an inventory, a diary, a quill, and a whole lot

of courage.

But how am I going to sneak into a nether fortress?

thought.

What’s Clyde doing, anyway?

Why did he join that crazy army? Was he angry because I

took oﬀ? What happened?

Eldra watched the kitten zoom oﬀ into the Nether.

“He’s sure got spirit,” she said to herself. “I think he’ll

be just ﬁne.”

She went back into her hut, glanced at the bubbling

cauldron, at the brewing stand, and ﬁnally …her mat on the

ﬂoor. It was just carpet, but it was the best she could do.

Beds exploded in the Nether, for whatever reason.

She suddenly felt exhausted. She yawned, headed

over to her mat, and …heard a mewing sound coming

from just outside her hut.

What’s that noise?

she thought.

It almost sounds like a

kitten! But

. . .

what’s Eeebs doing back so soon?

The witch, thoroughly confused, went outside and

glanced around. Lying nearby, on the reddish netherrack,

was not just one kitten, but two.

They looked sickly, barely conscious, as Eeebs had been

after he’d ﬁrst entered the Nether.

However, they didn’t look like Eeebs at all. One had tan

fur with orange stripes. The other, light gray and

brown with bright blue eyes.

Both kittens soon stopped moving, having lost

consciousness.

Eldra carefully approached them. She realized she

wouldn’t be getting sleep anytime soon. She needed two

buckets of milk to cure their illness, and she was fresh

out.

I wonder,

she thought.

Can I bring a cow into the Nether?

She bent down and picked up the two kittens, one in each

arm, then took them into her hut and laid them on her mat.

Of course, she wasn’t surprised when she examined

them.

Like Eeebs,

both kittens had the mark.

Meow?

Okay. There we go. I ﬁnally ﬁgured it out.

Apparently, I needed to use

a chicken feather, not my paws.

So, where do I begin? My name is Eeebs. I’m a kitten.

Well, sort of. I’m a little diﬀerent, nowadays.

What happened? I still don’t know completely. I was just

trying to get away from those wolves. Then I found that

nether portal.…

After I stepped through, I began changing. I found

that I could run faster, jump higher. Even turn slightly

invisible. This witch I met said I could even gain the

abilities of monsters.

Plus, I’m way smarter than I used to be. After all,

kittens don’t typically have diaries.

The witch said there’s a reason why all of this happened.

I’ve been “chosen” to help save the world. There’s this

huge army of monsters, and they want to take over all

three dimensions.

Of course, I’m supposed to help stop them. Me. A

kitten. I ﬁnd that hard to believe.

The only thing I’ve ever been good at is chasing

bats around. I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to

saving the world than that.

Anyway, for now I’m putting all that aside. You see, during

my time in the Nether, I also made a friend: Clyde.

He’s a ghast. He taught me a lot of things about his

world. But then, the witch said he took oﬀ to join that

army.

My best buddy, siding with the enemy? Clyde would

never do that! And if he did, it must have been for a very

good reason. Maybe he’s spying on them. Or maybe they

forced him.

In the end, it doesn’t matter why he left. I have to go

ﬁnd him.

The witch said that Clyde took oﬀ to this place called a

nether forest. Was she joking around with me? I don’t

think the Nether even has forests.

I’ve been searching for hours

and haven’t found a single tree.

I searched around the Nether some more.

At ﬁrst, all I found were mushrooms, glowstone, and

a lot of zombie pigmen.

Then I saw a weird creature. He was stranded in

the middle of a lava lake, balancing on a single block of

netherrack.

The Nether is full of strange stuﬀ, but I’ve never

seen anything like it before. I just had to see what he was

doing there.

But as I got closer, I noticed that this creature looked

unfriendly. Dangerous, even. He was made of

bones and was carrying one of those sharp things the

pigmen always have on them.

Just as I turned away, he shouted:

“Hey! Don’t leave, huh?! I really need some help over

here!”

My curiosity got the best of me. I turned back and

approached the lava.

“How can I help?” I called out, stepping to the lake’s

edge. “I can’t swim in lava.”

“Sure you can,” he said. “You won’t burn up! Just

hop in, ﬂoat over here, and give me a ride! Wait …you

are a magma cube, aren’t you?”

“Actually, I’m not.”

The creature leaned forward slightly, as if taking a better

look. “Oh, sorry! My vision’s not the best these days.

Well, if you’re not a magma cube, what are you, then?”

His question totally threw me oﬀ guard.

How could someone not know a kitten when they see

one? Even one such as myself …

“What do you mean, what am I?!” I hissed. “What

are you?!”

The bony ﬁgure whirled around, apparently just as

shocked. “What? Haven’t you ever seen a wither

skeleton before?!”

“I have,” I said. “But only a few times, and I never knew

what you guys were called. I’m from the Overworld.

Long story.”

“Right. Some other time.” The so-called skeleton

paused. “Got a name?”

“Eeebs. You?”

“Batwing.” He glanced around. “Well, Eeebs from the

Overworld, how about we help each other out?”

“Assuming I even could get you out of there,” I said,

“what would you do for me?”

The skeleton laughed. “Simple. You need a guide.

You’re clearly lost. I mean, if you knew anything

about this place, you wouldn’t be going that way. No,

anywhere but that way.”

I glanced in the direction I’d been heading earlier.

All I could see were netherrack hills, nether quartz veins,

and lavafalls.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” I said, pretending not to

care. But again, my curiosity soon took hold. “What’s over

there, anyway?”

“More of my kind,” Batwing said, “plus a whole

lot of blazes. And none of them are as nice as me. Believe

me, fuzz block, the last place you want to be going

to is a nether fortress.”

My ears perked up. Nether fortress …?

So that explained why I never found any trees. I thought

the witch had said nether forest, but I must have

misheard.

This whole language thing is still new to me. I could

speak with other cats before, yes, but my conversations

with other creatures were …very limited. The only non-

cat word I knew before this change was “grr,” which is

wolf for “I’m going to eat you now.”

After realizing what the skeleton had said, I was so

excited that I stepped to the very edge of the lake and

nearly slipped oﬀ.

“A nether fortress?! That’s exactly where I need to

go! My friend went there! I need to save him!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.…” The wither skeleton

lowered his head. “And here I thought it was my lucky

day.…”

“The deal’s still on, right?”

The skeleton shook his head. “No. No deal. No

way am I going there.”

“Fine.” I turned around. “Then I’ll just have to go there

myself. See you around!”

“N-no, w-wait!” the skeleton called out. “Okay! You

win! Just get me oﬀ this rock, and I’ll take you anywhere

you want to go.”

I nodded. “What do I do?”

“That’s easy. Since you can’t swim, you’re going to

be building a bridge.”

Bridge? Another word I didn’t know. Clyde had taught

me a lot of words, but he’d never mentioned anything

about bridges.

“A what?”

“Seriously? They don’t have bridges in the

Overworld, either?”

“Maybe they do, but I’ve never heard of them. Also, what’s

‘building’?”

Batwing grumbled to himself. “Never mind. I’ll walk

you through it. You don’t happen to have any tools, do you?”

My confusion only grew. “Tools?”

More grumbling from my new friend. He glanced

downward, particularly at my paws. Then he chuckled.

“Y’know, actually, I think we can make this

work.”

“Come on! Punch!”

A skeleton named Batwing, surrounded by lava,

shouted these words at me. It’s been a weird couple of days.

Still near the shore, I stared down at the reddish

netherrack beneath my paws. “So, I just hit it? Like

this?”

“Exactly! But harder!”

I threw a real punch this time.

Cracks formed where my paw struck the ground. Only,

they vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

“Don’t stop!” Batwing called out. “Just keep

punching!”

“Seems a little weird.”

“It’s not! It’s what you have to do when you don’t have

any tools!”

“Right.” More punching.

My paws hammered away at a block of netherrack.

I didn’t let up this time—just kept punching away. The

cracks grew larger and larger, until ﬁnally the block

came loose. I pulled it out without too much eﬀort.

It wasn’t as heavy as I’d expected.

Batwing seemed pleased. “That’s it! Now, just

place it over by the edge there!”

I did as he instructed. Since I was holding the block

with my front paws, I had to stand upward on my hind legs.

I was walking. Just like a zombie pigman. Only

not as fast. Hobbling over, I shoved the block against the

edge of the shore. Strangely, as if by magic, the block

snapped into place.

I’d never known that it was possible to change the

environment like this. Truly, I understood nothing about the

rules of this world.

(Even if I am smarter than the

average kitten, I still have a lot to learn.)

“Great work so far!” Batwing said. “Now, do it ﬁve

more times!”

I glanced at the lava between us. Suddenly, it all made

sense.

If I placed enough blocks, a row of netherrack would be

formed across the lava, a so-called “bridge.”

(Gosh,

these monsters and their fancy words!)

Punch, punch.

I moved a second block. A third.

Finally, after I placed the sixth, Batwing jumped so

high it was almost as if he could have cleared the lava

without a bridge at all.

Then he zoomed to safety, stopped, spun around, and

jumped again. “Oh, man! I can’t believe this! You

don’t know how thankful I am, kitten! I was trapped

there for weeks!”

“Now that you mention it,” I said, walking up to him,

“exactly how did you wind up there?”

Batwing looked away. “Those animals! They put

me there! After I told them we shouldn’t be attacking the

Overworld!”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

Then it hit me. “You mean you were part of that army?”

“Yes. Was. I couldn’t go along with everything they

were doing. That enderman is crazy.”

I knew he must have been talking about EnderStar—an

enderman so bad his own kind actually kicked him

out of the End.

“By the way,” Batwing went on, “you should know that

not everyone in the Nether is bad. Like my friends. I’d

like to introduce you to them.”

“That’s ﬁne,” I said. “But ﬁrst . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. We’ll ﬁnd your friend. But let’s

get one thing straight ﬁrst.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll do all the talking.”

We ﬁnally reached the fortress.

I’d never seen anything so big—just block after

block of nether brick.

Another so-called “bridge” spanned a wide chasm ﬁlled

with more orange ﬁre water. A wither skeleton was

standing guard there.

“That’s Wishbone,” Batwing whispered. “Not too smart,

but an all right kind of guy. Just follow me and don’t say

anything. Actually, wait. Make a hissing sound. Can you

do that?”

I hissed. “Like this?”

“Kind of. But more like smoldering magma or

something.”

“Magma?”

Batwing facepalmed. “Dude. You have seen a

magma cube before, right?”

“Maybe? I don’t know?”

“Whatever. After we go up to him, just start

hissing.”

“Okay.”

Batwing walked up to the wither skeleton, and I followed.

“I never thought you’d make it oﬀ that block,”

Wishbone said, “with your fear of swimming and all.

Anyway, the boss said you aren’t exactly welcome here

anymore.”

“That’s ﬁne.” Batwing pointed at me. “I just wanted to

show the boss this, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“A very rare type of magma cube,” Batwing said.

“Might be useful for the army.”

Wishbone approached me. “Doesn’t look like any magma

cube I’ve ever seen. Aren’t they supposed to look like, um,

you know, magma?”

Batwing shook his head. “As I said, this is an

extremely rare type. And very powerful, I

might add.” He glanced at me. “Plus, it hisses, just like

any magma cube.”

Oh. Right.

I hissed as loud as I could.

“What kind of sound is that?!” Wishbone said. “Listen, it

doesn’t sound like a magma cube at all, and why is it

blue?”

Batwing sighed. “You’re making fun of a poor little

magma cube because he’s blue, are you? You know the

boss doesn’t like such discrimination!”

“N-no,” Wishbone said. “I—”

Batwing shook his ﬁst, seemingly angry. “So he’s blue!

So what?! Do you know how many monsters have made

fun of him for this?”

“I was just joking!”

“Clearly! A joke at his expense!”

“I’m sorry! Please come in! Don’t tell anyone I said

that!”

“Fine. And don’t tell anyone we’re here,” Batwing said. “I

want EnderStar to be surprised when he sees his new

gift.”

“Y-yeah, okay, okay.” Wishbone looked at me. “Sorry,

man. Blue magma cubes are totally cool, all right? Even

blue magma cubes with legs!”

“Hissss?! Hisss! Hiss-hiss-hiss!!”

“I said I’m sorry!” He stepped backward and made a wide

gesture. “Come on in.”

With that, we walked past him and stepped inside the

fortress.

“You’re probably wondering why that guy was so

afraid,” Batwing said once we were out of earshot. “From

what I’ve heard, EnderStar was picked on as a kid because

his eyes glowed too brightly.”

“I certainly know how it feels,” I said. “So, any monster

under his command who makes fun of another’s

appearance is punished?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

As we wandered farther inside, I began to realize just how

huge the nether fortress was: Endless halls stretched for

hundreds of blocks.

There were so many monsters here, too. I’d seen

most of them before. Batwing told me the angry ﬁre

things, ﬂoating in the air, were called blazes. More wither

skeletons marched in groups, along with zombie

pigmen. I even saw a few ghasts ﬂoating around in the

larger chambers. Sadly, none of them were Clyde.

Another wither skeleton soon stopped and questioned

me:

“Hey! You there! What are you, exactly? You’re the

strangest-looking monster I’ve ever seen!”

“I am Lord Sizzleblock,” I said, “Royal Magma Cube

from the Overworld. EnderStar has asked me to pay him a

visit. And you are?”

“Yes, let us know your name,” Batwing said, “so that

the noble Lord Sizzleblock can inform the great

and powerful EnderStar of such discrimination and

—”

The skeleton fell to his knees and bowed so deeply he all

but kissed the nether brick ﬂoor. “Forgive me at once, Your

Majesty! I simply didn’t know that your kind came in

such lovely shades of blue! How many times do you want

me to bow?”

“Fifty should be enough,” I said.

“Of course, my lord!”

Every time a monster questioned us, it went pretty

much like that.

Once, a zombie pigman grunted at us. “Urg! Who you?

Why you here?” He looked closer. “Urguu?! What you

are?!”

Batwing pointed his sharp stick at the zombiﬁed

pigman. “How dare you address the grand and

majestic King Flamepixel with such insolence! He

visits upon EnderStar’s request, who shall be notiﬁed of

your—”

The zombie pigman didn’t apologize.

Instead, he ran oﬀ the nearby edge of the fortress—

without jumping, just kind of tipping over—and fell

into the lava far below. The way he dropped oﬀ instead of

jumping …it was like he wanted to reach the lava as fast

as zombie pigman–ly possible, to the millisecond.

“Wow,” I said. “Um …that was a pretty extreme

reaction, no? They must really fear EnderStar.”

Seconds later, a blaze appeared. “Gzzzzt?! Www-w-

what?! Bgzzzt!! A-a-are?! Gzrrg!! Y-y-ou …?!”

I stepped forward, about to say something. I didn’t

need to, though. Not this time. The blaze was very

confused by the sight of me. So bewildered, in fact,

that it began trembling in the air, made a weird

sputtering noise, and ﬂew oﬀ while spinning around and

gurgling—its direction and angle changing randomly as

it did.

I watched the blaze disappear into the gloom

overhead. “Do I really look that weird?” The sputtering

sound eventually faded completely.

Then I heard a voice in the distance.

“Eeebs?!”

There he was, gliding through the air.

“Clyde! What are you doing here?! I’ve been

looking everywhere for you!”

“Oh, Eeebs. I’m so sorry. I . . .”

“Did you really join their army?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I only joined because I was looking for

you, too! I didn’t know how to go to the Overworld and

was too scared to go there alone.”

I felt so relieved. Of course. I knew Clyde wouldn’t

actually join them.

“We have to get out of here,” I said. “Everyone keeps

freaking out when they see me.”

Clyde nodded. “I’ll say! A blaze just ﬂew past me,

upside down!”

We heard a faint boom oﬀ in the distance, as though the

blaze had crashed into a wall and exploded.

Batwing winced. “Poor guy. Anyway, let’s get out of

here. More monsters will show up any minute.”

“He’s right,” Clyde said. “Let’s go.”

Long story short, I ﬁnally caught up with Clyde again.

We made it out of the nether fortress without much

trouble.

“The Overworld is in danger,” Clyde said, once we

were in the clear. “EnderStar is gearing up for something

big. Much bigger than we thought. Not even the

Nether will be safe.”

“About that,” Batwing said. “You two seem like cool mobs.

I’d like to introduce you to my friends.”

“Fine by me,” I said. “As long as they won’t do

something crazy upon seeing me like turn into a baby

slime.”

I didn’t know it then, but Batwing was about to show us

what I now consider to be the coolest place in the

Nether.

During our trip to see Batwing’s friends, the wither skeleton

did something strange. He retrieved a purple rock

from somewhere I couldn’t see.

“That’s a strange-looking rock,” I said.

“It’s not a rock. It’s a crystal. And it’s called a

tellstone.”

“What does it do?”

“It can be used to send messages to other people.

Even people who are far away. Even people you don’t

really know. You can speak with them in their

dreams.”

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. Magic. Anyway, it isn’t working properly. I

was only able to contact two villagers.”

“Can we speak to them now?” I asked.

“Hmm …maybe. Let’s try.”

Batwing held the crystal closer so that I could see.

“Nah. Maybe they’re not sleeping right now.… Oh, wait!

Guess they are.”

The face of a villager boy appeared in the crystal. It

was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.

The villager’s voice seemed to resound from within the

tellstone:

“As if my dreams aren’t bad enough. Now I get to listen

to this bonehead talk in that scratchy, gravelly

voice of his.”

Batwing moved the crystal closer and began speaking into

it.

“Bonehead? I’m not the one who just bombed three

tests! Hey, I’m sorry, all right? Hey! Don’t shut me out,

kid! Look, I’m not going to ask you to save me! Someone

else already did!”

Then the wither skeleton extended his arm to move the

crystal farther away from us.

When he did, the villager boy seemed shocked. It was

like he really could see me somehow.

“Don’t look at them like that!” Batwing said, speaking

into the crystal once more. “They’re not monsters! Well,

okay, they are monsters, and so am I, but we’re

good! We’re not like the rest! We’ve made a whole

city by ourselves! A city of good monsters, hidden from all

the bad ones! By the way, this is Eeebs. He won’t

bite. Promise! Oh, and that’s Clyde over there. Both

of them are really nice!”

He said a lot more to the villager

(advice of some kind),

but I’ve already forgotten it.

After walking across countless hills and following Batwing

through an enormous cave, I ﬁnally saw it:

Lavacrest.

The city of good monsters, hidden deep within a

netherrack mountain.

Vast streets of nether brick stretched endlessly.

Blocks of glowstone sat upon posts of nether-brick fence.

Countless iron doors led to shops, homes, and even

schools where monsters could study various crafts,

like mining and enchanting.

Every monster imaginable could be seen here, even

some not native to this dimension, such as

endermen and witches. They had traveled here to learn

more about magic. Magic …that was something I was

totally unaware of, until today.

Witches, huddled in groups outside, were uttering

strange words. White glyphs hovered in the air before

them.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Casting a protective spell,” Batwing said. “I forgot the

name.”

“Reinforce,” Clyde said. “They’re enchanting the

city’s blocks to be more resistant to explosions.”

“There’s even a spell that can make a block impossible

to mine,” Batwing said. “It’s pretty high-level, though,

and consumes a diamond upon casting.”

As we wandered the streets, with me staring in awe,

Clyde and Batwing went on about the many block

enchantment spells. One spell, Spike Growth,

caused a block to grow spikes on each of its sides,

damaging anyone touching it or walking across its surface

—much like cactus. First Burst acted like a trap:

Anyone stepping on it caught ﬁre. There was also a

lightning-based version, known simply as Zap. Another,

Frost Aura, provided a slowing eﬀect.

“Kind of like soul sand,” Clyde said. “Except it also

makes you attack slower.”

“Soul sand?”

Batwing sighed. “That sand you saw in the nether

fortress.”

In addition to block enchantment spells there were spells

that created new types of blocks, such as Shadow

Block. After casting this spell, you chose a material—

sand, cobblestone, netherrack, anything—and a block of

that type would appear. This block, although appearing

real in every way, was something called an “illusion.”

You could walk through it as easily as walking through

air.

“We’re about to place these blocks across the cave

entrance leading to this city,” Batwing said. “That way,

EnderStar’s soldiers will never ﬁnd this place.”

“Don’t you need a bat’s wing to cast that one?” Clyde

asked.

Batwing nodded. “Yeah. We really need to head to the

Overworld and go bat hunting.”

Another spell was called “Light Block.” It created a

block of intense white light, which could be walked

through. However, standing within such a block was like

standing in sunlight.

A more powerful version of the spell, Concentrated

Light Block, was twice the normal strength of

sunlight, meaning it would burn monsters to a crisp.

“We ﬁgure a wall of light blocks might be useful against

a zombie horde,” Batwing said. “Sadly, both versions of

Light Block require emeralds to cast.”

And then there was Mud Aspect, which gave a

block mud-like consistency. Anyone stepping into it

would slowly sink down. Their movement speed would be

decreased as well, although not as much as the eﬀect

Frost Aura provided.

Needless to say, Slime Aspect gave any block the

properties of slime, meaning it could be used to bounce

upward.

But the most interesting, in my opinion, was

Teleporter Cube. I didn’t understand how it

worked, but Clyde said it could be used to travel vast

distances instantaneously.

“Not a single monster in the city knows that spell,”

Batwing said. “Not even Greyfellow.”

I blinked. “Greyfellow?”

For once, Batwing wasn’t annoyed at my cluelessness.

“He’s the guy who runs this place.”

“He’s also the guy we’re going to see,” Clyde added.

“I’m sure he must know more about your …current

state.”

Perhaps ten minutes later, we reached Greyfellow’s

home: a huge hut made of nether quartz. Batwing

increased his pace, muttering something to himself.

Clyde and I exchanged glances

and followed him in.

Greyfellow was an enderman.

He wasn’t black, however, but light gray in color with

bright sky-blue eyes. In addition, he wore a fancy-looking

white hat, not unlike those typically worn by witches. He’s

known as an “endermage,” one of the last

enderman wizards in all of Minecraftia.

“Where have you been?” he said to Batwing.

“Yeah, about that,” Batwing said. “Those bums stranded

me out there.”

“Oh?”

Batwing withdrew the brilliant purple tellstone

from his inventory. “And your little crystal didn’t work.”

“What do you mean it didn’t work?”

“Well, I tried telling those villagers that the Overworld

is in danger. I begged them to set me free. The girl

just ignored me, and this little punk, Runt,

kept telling me to go away.”

“My apologies,” Greyfellow said. “Villagers are a crude

folk. They can sometimes be …uncouth. Interesting that

you weren’t able to contact anyone else, though. Hmm …

Give me the tellstone.”

“Gladly. Take it.”

“I shall craft you a new one later tonight,” the

endermage said. He glanced at Clyde and me. “And who are

your new friends?”

Batwing introduced us, and the endermage noticed my

mark. “Interesting. You come from the Overworld,

then? Yes. You were once a kitten. I can see that now.”

“Do you know what happened to me?” I asked.

“I believe so. Although, I must consult the ancient

texts. Go now. Eat. Sleep. In the morning, we shall

speak again.”

Before long, I’d eaten three cooked salmon

and was curled up next to a burning block of netherrack.

How these monsters got ahold of salmon, I didn’t know

and didn’t ask.

Magic, probably.

Yawn. Maybe they can conjure food as well as blocks?

As I dozed oﬀ,

I started purring.

That morning, I met up with the gray enderman again.

He told me a lot of stuﬀ and showed me this huge,

ancient book.

He let me borrow it, so I’m going to copy some of it

down.

***

THE PROPHECY OF MINECRAFTIA,

VOLUME I

And so shall it be: In these perilous times, two

Saviors shall descend from the Sacred Light and

drive the Veil of Darkness to each corner of the

world.

One Savior shall take the form of a young Human

man—KOLB. He represents all that is Earthly and

Known. The other shall arrive in the form of a young

Sylph woman of most enchanting beauty—IONE.

She represents the Unearthly, the Unknown.

Alas, our Saviors walk a diﬃcult path, for their

Divine Weapons, forged by the White Shepherd and

blessed with Sacred Light, were all but destroyed

during the Second War. Only when their shards have

been reunited can each Weapon be fully re-forged.

In addition to our Saviors, ﬁve Beings shall be

Chosen by the Light:

1. A villager displaying incredible creativity and

insight, with compassion for all life. He shall

take up the sword and become not only a

Warrior but a supreme Tactician without equal.

Although his power comes from within, the

Sacred Light shall assist him in the form of

Luck. He is a champion of the Overworld.

2. Three animals displaying the highest bravery in

the face of great danger and loyalty to their

friends. The gender and form of each animal are

Unknown. They shall be blessed with higher

intelligence and begin to take on the aspects of

monsters. The ﬁrst of these Chosen Animals

shall seek to meet and serve the ﬁrst Chosen

Being. These animals are champions of the

Nether.

3. The third Chosen Being is entirely Unknown,

although it is Known that this Being shall be

most bizarre in nature. He serves as a

champion of the End.

Know this: As the Darkness continues to spread

across our World, our Saviors must seek to reclaim

the fragments of their Divine Weapons, for these

blades are the only two Divine Weapons remaining

after the Second War. The rest, destroyed by the

Eyeless One, are lost for eternity.

Before all else, our Saviors shall head to the

Capital of our World, known as Aetheria City,

where they shall learn of past knowledge and train

themselves, for their energy will have diminished

during their journey.

Soon thereafter, the Great War shall begin between

the forces of Light and Darkness.

***

Okay. There’s much more to that book, but my head

hurts.

(My paw, too.)

In dark times, heroes from “another world” will arrive

to ﬁght against evil. Five beings from this world have been

selected as well.

I’m one of the animals mentioned. I’m supposed

to ﬁnd and serve the ﬁrst “Chosen Being.” A villager.

That means I need to return to the Overworld.

But that enderman wizard, Greyfellow, doesn’t want me

to. Not yet. He says I must learn more about my abilities

before I leave. I must become stronger.

We talked about this stuﬀ all day. I’m really tired, now.

Talking in a non-cat language I’ve just learned is still

diﬃcult for me, remember?

By the way, some of the monsters here really can

conjure food with magic. It’s so cool. All I have to

do is ask some witch or enderman for raw salmon. I can

cook it myself because I’ve been blessed with higher

intelligence, according to that old book. How cool is

that?! Meow!

Time for sleep.

My “training” starts tomorrow.

“They’ve found us! They’ve found us!”

I woke up to a creeper wizard shouting these words. I

was still at Greyfellow’s house. When I walked outside, I

saw so many diﬀerent monsters running around and

shouting.

From this crowd, Greyfellow and Batwing emerged. They

were holding on to a zombie pigman by each arm. He

seemed familiar somehow. But where could I have seen

him before?

“We found him sneaking around just outside the city!”

Batwing said. “Little snoop!”

Clyde ﬂoated down to our level. “What are we going to do

with him?”

“We’ll have to imprison him,” Greyfellow said. “If we let

him go, he’ll give EnderStar the location of our city.”

“N-no,” the pigman said. “Me. Want. T-to—”

“Shut it!” Batwing said. “You’ll say anything to get

away!”

A creeper shouted: “Hisssss, me blow him up!”

“I say we throw him into the pit!” a nearby witch

shouted. “That’s the best way!”

“Yesh! Duh pit! Duh pit!” After uttering these noises,

several zombie pigmen

(good ones, apparently?)

began

chanting: “Duh pit! Duh pit! Duh pit!”

Soon, hundreds of monsters joined in.

(However, most were shouting/chanting “the

pit” as

opposed to “duh pit.” Why do some speak diﬀerently?)

“They’re right,” Batwing said. “There’s only one way we

deal with our enemies, and that’s tossing them in the

pit. A good dropkick from behind—not too hard, eh, a little

encouraging tap in the rear—and boom, one-way ticket to

another dimension. Suddenly, our problem is no longer

our problem, just breakfast for some hungry Void

beast.”

A tear ran down Clyde’s cheek. He spun around. “No!

What are you saying?! We can’t do that! If we do, we’ll

be just as bad as EnderStar!” He paused. “Wait. Um …

guys? What’s the pit?”

“Oh. Okay. So that’s the pit.”

Some say it goes on forever, but Greyfellow told me the

truth: It actually reaches the Void.

When you fall in, you’ll fall for quite a long way. But

after some 6,570 blocks, you’ll eventually arrive in a

bizarre world. A world of eternal night containing

crystalline plants, lakes of glowing blue ooze,

invisible things brushing past you and whispering into

your ear, and, yes, horrifying monsters.

At least, that’s what Greyfellow told me when I asked

him about it. Maybe he’s just trying to scare me?

He also said a race of peaceful mushroom

people live there, who know about such things as

“advanced crafting” and “advanced

brewing.” Whatever that means.

Anyway, thirty minutes later, over one thousand

monsters were standing around this seemingly

bottomless hole that may or may not have led to a place

one thousand times crazier than the Nether.

The prisoner was standing on the very edge, his back

turned to us. Batwing was right behind him.

“Just say the word, Greyfellow, and I’ll dropkick this

punk into a brand-new dimension!”

“P-please,” the pigman said. “Me. No. B-b-b …b …b-

bad.”

The endermage closed his eyes for what must have been

several minutes.

Ghast tears were running down Clyde’s cheeks, and

two witches were now trying to collect them.

I stared at the pigman the whole time.

Now where have I

seen him before? That thing on his head. I saw a pigman

wearing one of those before.

Wait a second! He was the guy leading all the other

monsters in the Overworld after EnderStar teleported away.

He was the smart one, the zombie pigman who could

actually talk.

What’s his name again?

Rarg? Yes! Rarg, the zombie pigman captain!

“Very well,” Greyfellow said at last. “I have decided that—”

“No!” I shouted. I walked up to Rarg and turned to the

other monsters. “Wait! I’ve seen this pigman before!”

“What? In the nether fortress?” Batwing said. “So what?”

“In the Overworld,” I said. “I watched from a distance

as EnderStar’s army panicked, blinded by sunlight.

They had no idea how bright the sun can be.”

“What’s your point?” Greyfellow said.

“Well, while I was watching them, I sensed

something good in this pigman. Since he was

wearing that thing on his head, he was the only one

who wasn’t blinded. He helped his fellow monsters return to

the Nether by singing a song so that they could follow

him.”

The endermage nodded. “I see, I see. Hmm . . . wearing a

helmet, yes. So, he’s quite smart. Hmm.”

“Not only that,” I said, “I could somehow sense that he

didn’t want to be there. Didn’t want any part of attacking

the Overworld. He kept hesitating whenever EnderStar

spoke to him.”

“C’mon!” Batwing said. “You know we can’t do anything

but give this guy a good kick! He’ll give away our

location if we don’t!”

“Quiet,” Greyfellow said. He walked up to Rarg.

“Pigman. Is it true? Do you really wish to abandon

EnderStar’s army and join us?”

“Y-yes,” Rarg said. “Me tired of boss man. And me

have many friends also tired of boss man. Boss man always

screaming. Always want us do bad thing. We don’t

want do bad thing.”

“Then why didn’t you leave before?” Greyfellow asked.

“We scared. Boss man make ﬁre from no ﬁre. Boss

man make white zap light from no white zap light. Boss

man also turn three me friend into ﬂying black

squeaky thing. Then he eat ﬂying black squeaky

thing. Me so sad. Me so angry. When me see ﬂying

black squeaky thing …me remember. Me cry. Me want

help beat him.”

“Flying black squeaky thing?” Batwing facepalmed. “This

is like talking to that kitten! Can you make sense,

please?”

“He means bats,” I said.

“Oh. Right.”

“I’m no wizard, but I believe there’s only one spell that can

turn someone into a bat,” Clyde said.

“Yes.” Greyfellow’s expression grew even more serious.

“Polymorph III. This is bad news indeed. He’s

much more powerful than we thought.”

“Why don’t we let Rarg join us, then?” Clyde asked. “If

he really does want out of EnderStar’s army, he can tell us

everything he knows!”

“Not a bad idea,” Greyfellow said. “He may also

convince his friends to switch sides and join us.”

Batwing facepalmed again. “Man, don’t you guys know

anything? We can’t take any chances! Listen, I’m a

wither skeleton, okay? I grew up in that nether fortress. I

used to be a bad mob. I know what bad mobs think. And

here’s what bad mobs think: bad things. EnderStar

probably sent him here and told him to say all of that

stuﬀ. And, once we ﬁnally start trusting him and let him

stay here and feed him mushrooms and slimeball

stew and the many other nasty things his kind eats,

he’ll learn everything about us, go back to the nether

fortress, and squeal like a …um …pigman?”

The other monsters seemed divided. Some nodded

their heads in agreement with Greyfellow and Clyde, and

others were thinking along the same lines as Batwing. It was

a situation stickier than any slime.

Then Rarg held out a stack of ender pearls. “Me.

G-g-g …g-g . . .”

“Give?” I asked.

“Y-yes. Me g-give.”

“W-where did you get those?!” Batwing cried out.

“Me grab green things. From big red house. Me g-g …

give you. Okay?”

“Interesting,” Greyfellow said, taking the stack of ender

pearls. “First the kitten, and now this.”

Rarg then held out a stack of gold bars. “Shiny

thing. Me also take these. Boss man shiny pile. Boss man

have many shiny things in shiny pile.”

He dropped the stack on to the ground, then he retrieved a

stack of shiny green rocks from his inventory and

threw them onto the ground as well. Many monsters

gasped.

“So many emeralds!”

This was followed by at least ﬁfty diﬀerent glass things

ﬁlled with water. Although, the water inside wasn’t blue but

purple, red, and green.…

“Potions, too?!”

“Boss man tell me, always watch bottle things. Make

sure no monster take bottle things. Why bottle things so

important? Me wonder. But secret. Me try drinking bottle

thing once. Me jump very high.” He chuckled. “Me

like bottle things.”

An unbelievable amount of items formed a pile at

Rarg’s big boots.

There were several books, like the one I’m currently writing

in. Except, they shimmered purple. Was that due to

magic?

“Enchanting books?!” a few monsters

exclaimed.

Rarg also threw down a pile of shiny whitish-blue

rocks. Those are called diamonds, apparently.

“Boss man say shiny rock most good,” Rarg said. “No

eat shiny rock. Shiny rock hard. But shiny rock make good

stab thing. Shiny rock also make good body thing, like on

head or feet.”

Around me, the excitement of the other monsters

ﬁlled the air. They kept chattering away about emeralds,

diamonds, enchanted books, potions.…

“Okay. Very last thing. Shiny metal. I ﬁnd in wood box.

Boss man say this junk. But me think so pretty.”

Rarg the zombie pigman withdrew another rock from his

inventory. Wait, no? It wasn’t a rock. It was a piece of

metal? It was bright silver and shimmered many

diﬀerent colors. It was so beautiful. The most

common color by far was this dazzling shade of

green.

“Unbelievable,” Greyfellow said. “I don’t believe …

this is . . . quite surely, it can’t be.… My fellow

monsters, we are looking at a shard. One of the

seven shards of Critbringer.”

Everyone fell silent, and then:

“Huh?”

“Shard?”

“Critbringer?”

“What are you talking about, Greyfellow?”

“It looks like a piece of metal to me.”

“It is a piece of metal,” Greyfellow said. “But not iron.

That is adamant, a metal so rare in our time that

it was thought to exist only in legend.”

I remembered the old book Greyfellow had let me borrow.

…Divine Weapons …all but destroyed during the

Second War. Only when their shards have been

reunited can each Weapon be fully re-forged.…

“You mean, this is from one of the sharp sticks mentioned

in the book?” I said. “The swords, I mean.”

“Exactly!” Greyfellow said.

The other monsters didn’t seem to understand. They

looked at each other with total confusion in their square

eyes.

The gray enderman scowled at them. “Fools! Have

none of you read of the Prophecy?! This piece of metal is

a fragment from the legendary sword

Critbringer! A sword forged in ancient times, when

monsters far more powerful than any of you roamed in

great number! Back then, weapons had to be strong enough

for land wyrms, lurkers, and other horriﬁc beasts

you cannot possibly imagine! This is one of the only

weapons still in existence powerful enough to harm

the Eyeless One, whose real name I shall not

utter here!”

“Lurkers?” Batwing sighed. “Are those the giant black

squid-like things with one thousand tentacles and a

single huge purple eye? The ones that live deep

underground? The reason why certain mineshafts are

abandoned? The monsters that reduce the durability of

your items with a single glance? I thought those things were

just a legend.” He shrugged. “Huh. Who knew?”

“Fool!” Greyfellow grabbed the shard and turned to

Rarg. “I can see now that destiny has brought you to us.”

The enderman addressed the entire crowd: “No harm shall

come to this pigman! Free him at once and see to it that

he is introduced to our city!” He sighed. “I must go

now. I have much work to do. Kitten, come.”

Rarg turned to me. “Thank you, blue fuzz thing. You

help me. Me so happy. You me friend now?”

“Yes,” I said to Rarg. “Me you friend now.”

“Breathe!” the endermage shouted. “Breathe!!”

“I’m breathing,” I said. “I’m breathing! But as you

can see, your Grand High Endermage-

ness, no ﬁreballs are coming out!”

“Try harder!”

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Nothing. Just little puﬀs of air.

We were back at Greyfellow’s place. The endermage was

trying to teach me how to use monster abilities.

As I exhaled over and over, a non-zombiﬁed pigman

who stood nearby saw me and started doing the same.

Moments later: “O’gorg! Me pants-pants heavy now. I go

bathroom now-now.”

“Leave us at once!” the endermage shouted.

The pigman left. “Clyde! Clyde! Oh, where did that silly

ghast run oﬀ to?!”

“I’m here!” the ghast called out. “What’s the

problem?”

“Do you see that wall of obsidian?” Greyfellow asked.

“Breathe a ﬁreball on it!”

“Can you stop shouting?”

“Now!!”

As commanded, the ghast drew in a deep breath, and—

whoosh!—spit out a large ﬁreball. It hit the obsidian

wall nearby without any real eﬀect.

“Now do it again! Keep doing it!”

One after another, I watched Clyde spit ﬁreballs at the

obsidian wall. “Good!” the enderman said. “Now, kitten.

You try.”

“Sure thing.”

Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!

Pretty pathetic. Not even a puﬀ of smoke.

“You aren’t trying hard enough!” Greyfellow shouted.

“Try!!”

“I am trying!” I shouted.

“Try harder!!”

“I am!!”

“There’s a large chance your homeworld is going to be

destroyed, kitten! Do you understand?!”

I hissed. “Hey! Stop freaking out, okay?! For the past

hour it’s been ‘Jump here! Swim in that lava over

there! Go invisible! Magically spit out ﬁreballs as if

you’re a—’”

Suddenly, my whole body shook.

Cough, hack.

Ahackckahackahack.

Hackhackhackackackkkkkkkkk.

What’s wrong with me? This is so painful! It’s like

coughing up a hairball but ten times worse!

I coughed up a ﬁreball instead. It was a tiny thing,

maybe ten times the size of a spark. It ﬂew out of my mouth

and wobbled through the air. There was a sad little sound

as it did: p’tweeeeeeeeeeee.…

This tiny ﬁreball, ﬂying so slowly

(slower than a zombie

pigman walking)

slowed down even more the more it ﬂew

toward the wall. It continued making that little noise:

eeeeee.…

We all watched as it continued to ﬂy forward

pathetically. It literally took twenty seconds to travel a

distance of nine blocks. Finally, there was a slight

sputtering sound as it hit the wall and vanished.

I coughed again. A little puﬀ of smoke came out. For a

long time afterward: silence.

I looked at Clyde. Clyde looked at the enderman. The

enderman looked at me. I looked at the enderman. The

enderman looked at Clyde. Clyde looked at me. Then we

all looked at the small obsidian wall my tiny little

ﬁreball had struck.

“I don’t believe it,” Greyfellow said. “The

Prophecy! It really is true!”

Clyde started spinning around frantically. “So cool,

Eeebs! Wow! I knew you could do it!”

“Yeah, yeah, not bad, kid!” Batwing was standing in

the doorway, now. “So, you’re some kind of mutant,

huh?”

Moments later, I heard a familiar voice. A girl’s

voice. Most of all, it was the voice of a kitten.

“Hey?! Eeebs?! What was that?!”

Tufty and Meowz were also standing in the doorway.

My friends from the Overworld. Strangely,

although I recognized them, they no longer looked like

kittens. Not really.

Big claws.

Ridiculously long ears.

As a matter of fact, and, as strange as it

sounds,

well … they almost kind of looked like

me.

Yesterday, I breathed ﬁre.

At the same time, my friends showed up, Tufty and

Meowz. They were pretty much in the same boat as I

was several days ago: clueless.

They still resembled their former selves. Tufty was still

orange-ish. Meowz was still mostly white. However, they

looked scary now. Like an-enderman-staring-at-you-in-a-

totally-dark-room-making-weird-little-noises-with-only-its-

glowing-purple-eyes-being-visible scary. Actually, worse

than that. Like my-mom-calling-me-by-my-full-name-

and-threatening-to-make-me-eat-puﬀerﬁsh-casserole-for-a-

week scary or human-trying-to-tame-me-with-a-pumpkin-

instead-of-a-ﬁsh scary.

Meowz crept into the house. “Eeebs?”

Tufty followed her in with his tail between his legs.

The endermage, Greyfellow, nearly fainted upon

seeing them. He turned to Batwing. “I can’t … I don’t …

what is happening, Batwing? Yesterday, everything was so

normal. I was drinking some redstone tea, thinking

about what to craft. Then this kitten shows up with the

mark. Then a zombie pigman not only joins our side but

hands over EnderStar’s treasure horde.

Then, the kitten actually breathes ﬁre. I’d never believed

in the Prophecy myself!

Did you? And now two of his friends arrive, apparently

Chosen as well.…”

He trailed oﬀ and appeared to be looking at something

far away.

Batwing sighed. “Three kittens as Chosen Animals.

Why couldn’t it have been something way more crazy,

like a chicken and a donkey? A bat and a cow?”

“I was hoping for a squid and a pig!” Clyde said. “I read

about squids, once.”

“Anything but three kittens.” The wither skeleton

nudged Greyfellow.

The endermage mumbled absently, still staring ahead: “I

like redstone tea … and … kittens … three kittens …

what does it mean … ?”

“So, these are your friends, Eeebs?” Clyde

smiled. Well, he didn’t, really, but he didn’t sniﬄe or

anything like that, and his frown vanished. That’s pretty

much like smiling for a ghast.

“Yes,” I said, approaching Tufty and Meowz.

“We came across the witch,” Meowz said. “She told us

everything.”

“We didn’t believe her when she said we could use the

abilities of monsters,” Tufty said. “It’s true,

though. This is so cool! How can I breathe ﬁre like that?”

“You guys really shouldn’t have followed me,” I said.

“Really. You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourselves

into.”

Meowz looked like she was about to cry. “Eeebs?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s happening?”

“About that,

purrrr

…”

I tried telling them about the Prophecy, and I

showed them Greyfellow’s book. It was hard for me to

explain everything to them, and the endermage wouldn’t

chime in and help me out. He just kept babbling on

about redstone tea: how he liked it warm although not too

warm, how he added some crushed ﬂower petals like

blue orchids to the recipe to make it taste better, how he

thought it further improved the taste and added “more

kick” when he made it using a brewing stand instead of a

crafting table.…

I turned to the endermage. “Hey? Greyfellow? Who

wrote this book, anyway?”

“… it’s the bubbling process,” he mumbled. “A brewing

stand aerates the tea, providing a more crisp and

refreshing ﬂavor.…”

My ears and tail lowered, I started thinking that after

learning how to spit ﬁreballs, my next power was going

to be to shoot smoke out of my ears.

“Right,” I said. “Forget about who wrote it, then. What I

really mean to ask is, how did they know all of this stuﬀ was

going to happen? How did they know three animals

would be changed?”

Greyfellow nodded. “Why, yes … pink tulip certainly

tastes better than oxeye daisy, yes … yes, indeed.…”

“Um, what’s wrong with him?” Batwing said.

Clyde shrugged. Well, Clyde has no shoulders—he’s just

a giant white block with a face, really—but, anyway, for

some reason I felt that he shrugged. “Too much has

happened today.”

“You could say that.” The wither skeleton glanced out the

window. “I’ll go check on Rarg and see if he’s okay. Listen,

Eeebs. Why don’t you hold oﬀ on telling your friends about

the Prophecy till our endermage friend here isn’t

bumbling around like a land squid? In the

meantime, you can show your friends around the city.

Cool?”

“Sure,” I said, glancing at the two nether kittens. “Shall

we?”

The three of us left Greyfellow’s hut. I didn’t freak out at

the sight of my friends, not even then. I was still so

shocked by everything. I was about to join the

endermage. If just one more crazy thing had happened,

I’d have started mumbling about puﬀerﬁsh cookies:

how to align the eggs, milk, and sugar pixel by pixel on

the crafting table in a purrfect way to achieve a ﬁve-star

rating from the International Minecraftian

Baker’s Society, in not only consistency but also

form and texture, the lightness of the bread, crisp yet

never crumbling, with each tiny cube of sugar and baked

puﬀerﬁsh spread evenly throughout the biscuits to achieve

a pastry both magniﬁcent to the eye and simply

bursting with ﬂavor.

But then I wasn’t sure if the International

Minecraftian Baker’s Society had such a

reﬁned taste as a nether kitten’s, and soon I began to

wonder whether any of them would appreciate the

elegance of a cookie made of equal parts sugar and ﬁsh.

Speaking of Greyfellow.

(Wait

…

I wasn’t speaking of him. Whatever.)

Anyway, here are a few drawings of his house.

Well, I showed my friends around Good Mob City.

We didn’t talk much, though. They were just as silent as

me.

I mean, all of this stuﬀ has happened so fast. Just a week

ago, we were playing hide-and-seek. Now, we’re nothing

like our former selves. We’re supposed to help save the

world.

An hour or so later we headed back to the gray enderman.

He’d ﬁnally calmed down a little.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe it. Still

can’t. The Prophecy really is true?! Which means …

our world is going to suﬀer through yet another Great

War.”

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, getting straight

to the point.

“Hmm. First, let’s try something. Kittens, I want you to

think about the word ‘ability.’ Or just imagine your

abilities in general. Picture them in your mind.”

Tufty must have thought of his abilities ﬁrst.

Seconds after the endermage spoke, a gray screen

appeared before the orange nether kitten. This screen was

completely ﬂat, two-dimensional, and seemed to be

made out of colored light.

“Wow!” Meowz waved a paw through Tufty’s screen,

and it passed through without any resistance. “What is

that thing?”

“Those screens are called visual enchantments,”

the enderman said. “They can be used to interact with

objects or your inventory, or they can simply display

data.”

“And what are abilities?” Tufty asked.

“All monsters have abilities,” Greyfellow said. “Creepers

move silently. Endermen teleport. Zombies break

down doors. Of course, you kittens have more

abilities than any normal mob.”

I tried to concentrate on the word “ability.”

A screen appeared before me as well.

The enderman then told us that we could either touch

an ability’s name on the screen or focus on it with our

mind to access another screen. This screen would tell us

more about that speciﬁc ability.

When I batted at the words “Obsidian Fur” with a paw,

the words upon the screen changed to:

“If you want to go back to the ﬁrst screen,” Greyfellow

said, “just concentrate on that word. ‘Back.’ Or you could

speak it out loud.”

I tried the latter. “Back.”

The visual enchantment screen returned to its former

state.

“Interesting.” Touching the screen with her paws,

Meowz began browsing through all of her abilities.

I did the same, pawing down the list, accessing each sub-

menu, reading it, and saying the word “back” in my

mind each time.

Here’s a full list of my abilities:

(I’m guessing “INT” means intelligence? I have no idea

what “AI” means and neither does Greyfellow.)

The endermage said an ability’s level is a measure of how

powerful it is. So, most of my abilities are still pretty

weak. But they won’t be like that forever!

“By the way, energy is used for abilities,” the

enderman said. “Spells, too. Using abilities and casting

spells drain your energy bar. That’s why Eeebs

could breathe only one ﬁreball yesterday and only puﬀs of

smoke afterward. Energy slowly recharges over time.

So it’s best to use your abilities only when you

absolutely need them. Like most monsters, you

have a maximum of 100 energy.”

“How do we know how much energy we currently have?”

Tufty asked.

“That’s the yellow bar in your HUD, or heads-up

display. Simply concentrate upon the word ‘HUD’ in

your mind, and it will appear across the bottom of your

vision. If you are injured, hungry, drained of energy, or

debuﬀed in any way, your HUD will automatically

appear, as a kind of reminder, until your condition

improves.”

Okay, let’s try it: HUD.

As soon as I thought this, a bunch of stuﬀ appeared

across the bottom of my vision, just like the enderman had

described.

“The hearts are a measure of your life force,”

Greyfellow said. “Each heart represents two hit points.

By the way, I’m curious. How many hearts do you have?”

Each of us replied with the same number:

“Ten!”

“Twenty hit points, then. Not much. You’ll gain

much more as you grow stronger, though.”

“What about the gray shirt things?” I asked, not

wanting to think about what would happen if all of my

hearts were removed.

“That’s a visual indicator of your protection, otherwise

known as armor. The more armor you have, the less

damage you will take. Some forms of damage bypass

armor, however.”

“How about the boxes?”

“Your hotbar. You can secure items to your body—with

the help of a belt, for example—or in an easy-to-reach

location in your inventory. You may then access those

items quickly.”

All three nether kittens exchanged glances:

“Inventory?”

The enderman then explained how we each have an

“extra-dimensional space” that lets us carry many

items. We only have to say “inventory” in our minds for

the inventory screen to appear. That must be how Batwing

withdrew the tellstone from what looked like thin air:

He accessed his inventory.

“Your inventories are currently quite small,”

Greyfellow said. “You can increase the size of your inventory

by wearing a container, like a belt pouch. There are even

enchanted containers that dramatically increase

your inventory space. Sadly, such items, enchanted or not,

won’t be easy for kittens to wear. They aren’t normally

designed for animals. An easy way around that, if you felt

the need to carry many items, would be to level-up your

Pack Beast ability.”

Tufty blinked. “Um, can you repeat that? I’m

totally confused.”

“Same here,” I said. “I guess that means we

really need to level-up our Higher Intelligence

ability, huh?”

After we played around with our visual

enchantment screens, a question spawned in my mind.

“Say, how do we get stronger, anyway? And how can

our abilities gain levels?”

The enderman gave me a strange look. All of his

expressions were strange, really, but his expression then was

as if I’d just asked why zombie pigmen are purple and have

ice cream cones for heads.

“By doing your job,” he said.

“And that is?”

“Turning Herobrine’s and EnderStar’s minions into

clouds of smoke. Every time you defeat one, you’ll absorb

some of its power. Of course, you’ll also grow stronger by

questing.”

Questing … ?

Before anyone could even ask for clariﬁcation, more

screens appeared before us.

Like with the ability screens, simply thinking about the

word “quest” conjured what could be called a “quest

screen”:

Sadly, Tufty and Meowz had diﬀerent messages on their

quest screens.

“What does all of this mean?!” Tufty said. “It’s so

weird!”

“I have to agree,” Meowz said. “I’m so confused I could

hiss! It’s not fair, you know? We’ve been chosen to help

save the world, and all this new stuﬀ is being thrown at

us, and we don’t even get classes or something?”

“It does seem an awful lot has been thrust upon you

kittens,” Greyfellow said. “A heavy burden, indeed.

I am doing my best to teach you, but there are many

things I do not know. Eeebs, I do suggest returning to the

Overworld as soon as you can. Once there, the ﬁrst place

you should head to is the capital. Ask around for the

Library. One of my colleagues there knows much

about the Prophecy and may be able to help you locate

that villager.”

As he said this, I tried piecing everything

together in my mind.

1. We’re supposed to help ﬁght against the Eyeless

One, otherwise known as Herobrine.

2. We’ve been given abilities, and we have these

things called quests—tasks we’re supposed to

complete.

3. My ﬁrst quest is meeting up with that villager. A

villager I don’t know anything about. Is it a boy or a

girl? What’s his or her name? Why do I have to

serve that villager, anyway? What, am I just a pack

kitten or something? I thought my role in all this

would be a bit more glamorous than that.

“My friends really have to stay here?” I asked.

“I believe so. Your quests were given to you by the

Immortals themselves. It would be wise to follow

them.”

“That’s not fair!” Meowz said. “I don’t want to stay

here anymore!”

“You can’t be serious,” Tufty said. “We can

learn more about our powers! How cool is that?

Besides, don’t you want to help save the world?”

“Yeah, it’s just … I already miss my family.”

“At least you don’t have to go into the Overworld alone,” I

said, “looking like this.” I turned to the enderman.

“What about Clyde? Can he go with me?”

The endermage avoided my gaze. “Well, I … um … it’s not

exactly written in the Prophecy. Plus, I’m not sure

whether a ghast could even survive in the Overworld for

any length of time.”

Oh, man.

I didn’t want to be a hero anymore. Not without him.

How could I leave my best buddy behind? I’d just

caught up with him again!

“There has to be a way,” I said. “I really want Clyde to go

with me. He’s so smart. Besides, I know he’ll want to.”

“It’s up to him,” Greyfellow said. “I will warn you that

constant exposure to sunlight could weaken him,

possibly even kill him.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Meowz said. “Once you return to the

Overworld, you’re going to scare enough people as it is. A

huge ghast ﬂoating behind you certainly won’t help any.”

What will Clyde do once I tell him he can’t go with me?

thought.

Maybe it’s for the best. The witches seem to

like ghast tears, and after I tell Clyde that he can’t tag

along, their inventories will be overﬂowing with them.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to try,” the enderman

said. “Please follow me.”

To our complete amazement, Greyfellow then

whirled around … and stepped into the back wall

of his house!

Tufty and Meowz had no idea what was going on. But I’d

heard about shadow blocks and remembered how you

could walk through them. In other words, the

endermage was taking us to his secret chamber.

Now, I’d never really met a wizard before. At this point,

I had no idea that most wizards even had something called

“secret chambers,” much less how cool

secret chambers might actually be.

I saw a lot of new stuﬀ today and learned a lot of new

words. Such as “brewing stand.” And “anvil.” And

“crafting table.” And “enchantment table.”

“This is called a rune chamber,” the enderman said.

“Do you know what it does?”

I glanced at the giant silvery box. Even though it

didn’t look all that scary, it scared me all the same.

“Errr, no?”

Tufty wasn’t scared, though. He immediately zoomed

inside. “Is this like a house?” he asked, sniﬃng the silvery

material.

Meowz ran inside as well. “Wow,” she said, lifting up

her paws, as if the silver material

(“iron,”

I learned later)

was

painful to the touch.

She left the box as quickly as she’d entered. “It’s

freezing in there!”

“Indeed it is,” the enderman said. “It contains a most

powerful form of magic. Only three wizards in

all of Minecraftia know how to create such a device.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

“It makes you stronger,” he said. “Stronger than you

already are, I mean.”

Stronger than I already am? Even if I didn’t know how it

made me stronger, it sounded good to me. Is there any

downside to having more super powers? Basically

no.

“A rune chamber can permanently enchant an

animal or monster,” he said, “granting them additional

strength, defense, and so on.”

“What’s ‘enchant’?” Meowz asked.

The enderman shook his head. “Sorry. Not ‘enchant.’

Enchanting is more for items, physical objects. The technical

term is ‘enhance.’ A rune chamber can be used to

enhance you. But let’s just call it enchanting to make things

easier.”

Tufty stepped out of the rune chamber, shivering. “S-so,

it m-makes us more p-powerful?”

“Yes. And I would like to see whether it’s possible to aﬀect

Chosen Animals.” Greyfellow’s eyes glowed more

brightly as he glanced at us. “Are any of you willing to serve

as my … test subject?”

Three little paws ﬂew into the air at the same time.

        “Me!”

“Me!”

Tufty lumbered toward the chamber again, but Meowz

grabbed his tail. “I called it ﬁrst!” she hissed.

He grumbled. “Whatever. Don’t freeze your tail oﬀ, huh?”

With a smirk, the white nether kitten zoomed into

the rune chamber. “How long do I have to wait in here?”

“Not too long.” As the enderman said this, a gray

window appeared in the air before him. It contained many

boxes. In one box was an image of Meowz.

He placed a blue cube into one of the boxes. “That’s called

lapis lazuli,” he said. “It’s used for this type of thing.”

The cube disappeared, and a ﬂat image of the cube

appeared in the box.

“Almost done,” he said. “The process should take only a

few seconds.”

Suddenly, there was a bright white ﬂash from inside

the chamber. Meowz made the biggest and most terriﬁed-

sounding screech before jumping out.

“Mreeeeeeeeeeew! What was that?!“

Greyfellow smiled. “That was you being enchanted.”

“Really? I don’t feel any diﬀerent.” A screen appeared

before her moments later.

“Look,” Tufty said. “Your claws are kind of purple

now.”

Meowz held out one of her paws. Indeed, her black claws

had a faint violet glow, just like the books Rarg

had dropped earlier.

In addition, faint little shapes, almost like weird-

looking letters, could be seen upon the surface of her claws.

They were also violet, slightly brighter than the glow itself.

“This means I can do more damage?” she asked.

“A little,” Greyfellow said. “Rend I isn’t very powerful.

Sadly, you’re not strong enough for anything beyond that.”

Greyfellow turned back to the chamber.

“Okay. Who’s next?”

(10 minutes later …)

So, I’ve been modiﬁed with Rend I.

Every bit helps, right?

It feels kind of girly having glowing purple claws, but

whatever. I don’t care if my entire body turns bright

pink, so long as it means I no longer have to run from

wolves.

The rest of the day was spent training. After Tufty and

Meowz coughed up their own ghast ﬁreballs, we inched

silently across soul sand like creepers, climbed

up netherrack walls like spiders, sprinted like

zombie pigmen, placed a few items in our

inventories, and then swam in that orange ﬁre stuﬀ—err,

lava—for over an hour.…

There’s a huge lake of that stuﬀ in the center of the city.

The mobs often go swimming there. They call it a “pool.”

And today, that lava pool was ﬁlled with hundreds of

monsters—a “pool party.”

Swimming in lava was so terrifying at ﬁrst! It took me

ten minutes before I could dip one of my paws in. But it

didn’t burn. Didn’t even hurt! Lava is like warm water to

me now.

(I still haven’t tried drinking it yet. That’s on my to-do list.)

By the way, Batwing is immune to lava, too! So, I didn’t

even need to save him! But he’s terriﬁed of swimming

… Greyfellow actually had to push him in.

Clyde was swimming, too.

Yeah, I haven’t told him yet. I keep thinking about

how I can say it without hurting his feelings.

I know he’ll want to go with me, and I want him to

come too, but … I don’t want him to get hurt. I remember

what the sun did to the zombie pigmen and the blazes.

Maybe Clyde could wear a helmet? No, probably not.

Greyfellow could sense how I was feeling. He waded over

to me. “Still thinking about your friend, Eeebs?”

“Yes. I’ll miss him. I’ll miss all of them. I’ll even miss

you. Thanks for teaching us.”

“I’m glad I could help,” the enderman said. “Listen. Your

friend, Clyde. There is a way he could go with you.”

“There is?”

The enderman nodded. “One of the enhancements that

rune chambers oﬀer is Sunlight Protection. Shall we

ask him about this?”

“I suppose,” I said. “But I want it to be his choice.”

“Of course. Also, I have something you’ll need for your

return to the Overworld.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll show you tomorrow. I think you’ll like it.”

The following morning, I was holding one of those bottle

things: a “potion.”

“That’s a Potion of Disguise I,” Greyfellow said.

“Villager variant. Simply drink it and it will seem as though

you are an ordinary villager.”

Clyde stared at the red liquid contained within the

glass. “Will Eeebs still be able to use his abilities?”

“Yes. Disguise is merely an illusion. Regardless of

which form you take, you’ll still be able to do everything you

could before. Go on, Eeebs. Don’t be afraid. Drink

up.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Here goes.”

I chugged the potion. The taste … yuck! It was like grass

mixed with cobblestone.

(Don’t ask how I know what those

taste like.)

Thin white smoke appeared all around me. To the

gasps of my friends, I glanced down at myself and found

pale skin and brown robes instead of dark blue fur.

The endermage smirked. “Of course, you’ll need to

practice standing on your hind legs for the illusion to be

eﬀective.”

“Right.”

I tried standing up but fell to all fours again.

Meowz began rolling around on the ﬂoor: “Hahaha …

that’s just … wow, I can’t.…”

Soon, what appeared to be a very real and ordinary

villager

(me)

stood before everyone. Although I was

wobbling around on my feet.

“That potion has a duration of only one hour,” the

endermage said, “so I’ll brew half a stack for you.

Make sure to drink one before going into any town or village.

If you must remain there for any length of time, drink

another before the eﬀects wear oﬀ.”

“How will I know how much time I have left?” I asked.

“See that icon in the lower left corner of your vision?”

“Got it. Hey, what about Clyde?”

“What about me?” Clyde asked.

“Oh, man.” Batwing lowered his head. “You mean, you

guys didn’t tell him yet?!”

“Well, um …”

The ghast sniﬄed. “Tell me what, Eeebs?”

“I’m going to the Overworld,” I said. “It’s part of my

quest.”

A single tear fell down the ghast’s cheek. “I see. So,

you’ll be gone for good?”

“No way,” I said. “Come on, Clyde. I’ll come back. The

Nether is just as much my home now as the Overworld is.”

“All right. Then I guess there’s no reason to be sad,

right?”

“If you want, you can come with me.”

“I can? How?”

The enderman then chimed in with how it was possible to

protect him from sunlight. “It won’t make you

immune,” he said, “but you’ll be all right.”

“But it’s your choice,” I said. “You have to decide for

yourself.”

“Then I’m staying,” Clyde said. “You know the

Overworld, Eeebs. It’s best for you to go alone. I’ll stay

here and help protect the city in case EnderStar ﬁnds

us.”

Purrrrrrr.

That was way easier than I thought.

And Clyde was right. He would be way more useful

here. “You’re sure?” I asked.

“Deﬁnitely. I know we’ll meet again.”

And the ghast actually smiled. I mean actually

smiled. It was like seeing a ﬂower growing in the

Nether.

I nodded.

“We will.”

And so it seemed I was ﬁnally ready

to venture into the Overworld.

With Rarg’s assistance, the mobs here will try

recruiting mobs from the nether fortress and work on

defeating EnderStar.

I want to help with that, of course, but my destiny lies

elsewhere. Still, Greyfellow suggested that it might be

possible for the mobs here to join forces with villagers in the

Overworld. Together, we could take out EnderStar ﬁrst

then deal with Herobrine later.

“That really depends on whether anyone in the Overworld

is willing to help,” Batwing said. “Seems unlikely. But

then, those villagers I spoke to were diﬀerent from normal

villagers.”

“In what way?” Greyfellow asked.

“Seems like they’re training to be warriors. They

know how to wield swords, at least. In fact, they appear to

have helped ﬁght oﬀ several large attacks.”

“Coordinated attacks?”

Batwing shrugged. “If your little crystal was

accurate, then yes. The mobs were clearly working

together.”

“So, the Eyeless One has already begun to amass

his army.”

The endermage nodded. “This is no surprise.

We already know that the Prophecy is true. The Great

War will soon begin.”

“Do you think it’s possible that one of those villagers is the

one mentioned in that book?” Batwing asked.

“Perhaps. Perhaps that is why you were able to speak

with them.”

“Why two, though? I thought there was only one

Chosen Villager? Well, actually, no. Three. I spoke

with a third villager once. What was his name, again?

Pebble?”

“I don’t have any answer for that,” the enderman said. “In

fact, there is much I do not know. The tome I have

regarding the Prophecy is incomplete. Many pages have

been removed.”

“One more thing,” Batwing said. “Does the Eyeless

One know about tellstones?”

“I’m not sure,” the endermage said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that one villager, Pebble, said the Eyeless

One was speaking to him in his dreams. Told him

that Runt was a spy. A traitor. He appeared in

Pebble’s dreams at least ten times.”

“Why would Herobr—the Eyeless One take such an

interest in their village?”

The wither skeleton shrugged. “Beats me. My only

guess is he’s aware of the Prophecy as well and

discovered the identity of the Chosen Villager.”

“Yes, I suppose you are correct. Hmm.”

A villager, two kittens, and a ghast remained silent before

Batwing and Greyfellow, trying to understand these

mysteries.

Batwing seems to know a lot about what’s going on,

thought.

And he’s always talking to Greyfellow. He must be

really important?

As I listened, a realization suddenly hit me. If Batwing is

correct, then one of the villagers he spoke with is the

same villager I’m supposed to meet.

Breeze. Runt. Pebble. I’m writing these names

down here so I don’t forget them. I should try to locate

them in the Overworld as soon as possible. It’s my

quest, after all.

“I have a question,” I said.

The endermage turned to me. “What is it, Eeebs?”

“Well, you said that I should head to the capital city

ﬁrst. But I’m supposed to meet up with that villager, right?

What if he’s not in the capital?”

“Hmm. Batwing, do you recall seeing any buildings

when using the tellstone?”

“A few times,” the skeleton said. “Runt had a nightmare,

once. His village had been overrun.”

“So, he is in a village, then?”

“I believe so.”

“Did you see any buildings made of quartz or clay?”

“None. Wood and cobblestone, mostly. There was a

wall in the distance. Their village was surrounded by a

huge cobblestone wall.”

“Interesting.” The endermage closed his eyes for a

moment. “That sounds more like a town, not a village. You’re

sure they were villagers?”

“Hey, I’m sure,” Batwing said. “Both Runt and Pebble

had shaved heads and huge noses, while that girl had

super long hair and a little nose. Sound like villagers

to you, bud?”

“Certainly. I’ve just never heard of a village with a

wall before.”

“Maybe they’re smarter than the average villagers?”

“Maybe. Hmm.” The enderman closed his eyes again.

“Warriors, you said. Training to be warriors. Why does

that remind me of something?”

“Same here,” Batwing said. “Wait a second. I thought there

was a village in the east like that? Real serious folk.

Kids start training for combat at the age of six.”

“That almost sounds like Shadowbrook,” the

enderman said. “A village of proud warriors. Hmm. Batwing,

join me in my library. We have much research to do.”

The enderman turned to me. “I’ll give you your answer

soon, Eeebs. For now, rest. Spend time with your friends.

After today, you won’t have much time for

either.”

After wandering around the streets, I ﬁnally found Rarg.

He was in the center of the city, at the edge of the lava pool,

staring oﬀ into space.

“Hey, Rarg.”

“Hi-lo. Me friend. Me again want say. Thank.”

“No problem. Somehow I just knew you were a good guy.

I’m glad you joined us.”

“Me too. Boss man crazy. But boss man now-

now no boss man me. Now-now boss man me tall gray

blink man. Tall gray blink man no angry-say make me

black ﬂying squeaky thing.”

Um …

What’s he talking about?

Oh. He’s saying EnderStar is

no longer his boss.

He now takes orders from the endermage. He doesn’t mind,

because Greyfellow doesn’t threaten

turn him

into

a bat.

I’m guessing

“angry-say”

means

yell?

And

“blink”

must mean

teleport.…

What’s

“now-now,”

though? Why is it

repeated?!

Why do zombie pigmen talk so strangely?!

“Yes,” I said. “Tall gray blink man no angry-say

you. But angry-say me, me no know breathe ﬁre. But. Tall

gray blink man happy man. Most time.”

“He smart also.”

“Yes.”

“You. Name. Eee … bu?”

“Eeebs,” I said.

“Eee … buzz.”

“Close enough.”

“Eeebuzz? Me want know.”

He wants to ask me a question? Hmm, I’m getting better

at this.

“You what want know?” I asked.

“You go? You go where-where?”

“I go big light.” I pointed at the cavernous

ceiling far above. “Big blue. Yellow square. You know?”

“Me know. Me no like big blue. Big blue scare me.

And me eyes hurt me look big yellow square thing.

Eeebuzz? Me also want know.”

“Yeah?”

“You. No feel real?”

“What you say me no feel real?”

“No know. No know. Me no know how say.”

“What you say you no know how say? Me no know.”

“Me think some time me no real. No know how say.

But me no-no feel real. You?”

He’s saying he doesn’t feel real? What does he mean by

that? Actually, sometimes, I kind of get that feeling.… I just

assumed it’s from all the stress lately?

“Some time,” I said. “Yes. Me also no-no feel real.”

“Why you me no-no feel real?”

“Me no know.”

“Me also no know.”

Rarg held up a ﬁsh. I’d never seen that kind of ﬁsh before.

It was dark red in color.

“Me use wood string thing,” he said. “Me know

how use wood string thing. Wood string thing get red

swim-swim. You want eat?”

“Me no want eat. Me eat, you no eat.”

“No. Me many red swim-swim.”

“Okay.”

He handed me the red ﬁsh, and I bit into it. It was the

best ﬁsh I’d ever tasted.

He then pulled another red ﬁsh from his inventory and

ate it in seconds. He grinned. “Hee hee! You like?”

“It’s delicious,” I said, taking another bite.

“Delishi … ?”

A blank look, until I clariﬁed: “Me think red swim-swim

yum-yum.”

Wait a second. Where exactly did he get a ﬁsh like that?!

There’s no water in the Nether!

“Rarg. Where you get red swim-swim huh?”

He pointed to the lava pool. “There-there. Orange ﬁre

water.”

Seriously? He caught a ﬁsh in the lava?! There’s such a

thing as lava ﬁsh?!

“How you get? Can show me wood string thing now-

now huh?”

“Okay.”

He pulled a strange-looking item from his inventory.

It appeared to be a stick with some spider string

attached. At the end of the string was something I didn’t

recognize.

“You want try? I try now-now. You see me try.

Okay?”

“Okay.”

For the next hour or so, Rarg showed me how to ﬁsh. As

a cat, we usually just dived into the water, but this wood

string thing made things way easier.

Still, using that tool was diﬃcult for me at ﬁrst, as I had

to stand up on my hind legs. Standing was something I

still needed to practice.

And Rarg wasn’t lying. I eventually caught a lava

ﬁsh of my own, to my complete surprise.

I’d originally wanted to ﬁnd Rarg to see whether maybe

Batwing had been right about him being a spy. But as we

sat down at the edge of the pool, eating lava ﬁsh in

silence, I knew that he was just as innocent as me—

another little piece in what at times felt like some kind of

weird game.

I curled up next to my friends on the pink carpeting of the

endermage’s house.

Still, I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking and thinking

and thinking. About the upcoming war. About my abilities.

About my quest. Plus I could hear Greyfellow and

Batwing chatting, although I couldn’t make out what

they were saying.

They were in the secret chamber, I guess.

At last, I crept over to Greyfellow's huge bookshelf

and glanced at a few books on the very bottom. This section

was labeled “junk.” When I grabbed several of the books, I

quickly understood why.

I’m not sure why, but I decided to check out

Diary of a

Minecraft Grass Block.

There was an introduction, and it

read:

There was once a Minecraft grass block named

Minecraft Grass Block. Minecraft Grass Block liked doing

the things most Minecraft grass block children did.

Minecraft Grass Block wanted to learn how to be a better

Minecraft grass block, but how would Minecraft Grass

Block become a better Minecraft grass block than the

other Minecraft grass blocks who hoped to become

better Minecraft grass blocks, or at least better Minecraft

grass blocks than Minecraft Grass Block was at being a

Minecraft grass block and hopefully even the best

Minecraft grass blocks a Minecraft grass block could

possibly become?

Just turn the page, and follow the adventures of

Minecraft Grass Block in this Minecraft Grass Block Diary

of a twelve-year-old Minecraft grass block named

Minecraft Grass Block, a Minecraft grass block boy who

hopes to become a true Minecraft grass block or at least

a better Minecraft grass block than the other Minecraft

grass blocks.

Wow.

I had no trouble

sleeping afterward.

This morning, I said my goodbyes. To Tufty and Meowz. To

Clyde, Greyfellow, and Batwing.

Greyfellow gave me more Disguise potions and

an item called a “compass.”

“Remember, you’ll want to keep heading east.”

Batwing gave me a tellstone. “Maybe you’ll be able to

reach them at some point. Who knows?”

Clyde was crying, Meowz was about to join him, and Tufty

was trying his hardest to be brave: “Gonna miss you,

man. Stay safe, all right?”

“You know me.”

“Goodbye, Eeebs,” Clyde said. “Thanks for ﬁnding me.”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

“Come back soon, all right?”

“I will.”

And that was it. The endermage took me to the edge of

the city, where he’d built a nether portal.

“I will be traveling to the Overworld as well,” he said.

“Yet, I won’t be joining you. I’ll be traveling to the capital,

Aetheria City. If you should journey there, ask

around for the Library. I’ll be conducting my research

there.”

I nodded.

“Now, do you remember what you must do?” he

asked.

“After I arrive in the Overworld,” I said, “I must head east

and ﬁnd the village of Shadowbrook. It lies on the

east coast of the main continent. If instead I reach the

ocean, I should head north until I ﬁnd it.”

“Good. What will you do if you ﬁnd this village?”

“I’ll ask to see a girl named Breeze,” I said.

“Who else?”

“Runt. Pebble.”

“Good. And what will you do if you cannot locate

them?”

“I’ll head west, to Aetheria City, and ﬁnd you.”

“And if you do come across them?”

“I will tell them they need to abandon their village,” I

said, “and seek refuge in the capital.”

“Why?”

I crept forward, trying to recall what he’d told me earlier.

“Because according to the Prophecy, a dragon is

going to burn it to the ground.”

“Excellent. It seems your Higher Intelligence

ability really does work.”

“…”

I remembered the ﬁrst time I’d stepped into a nether

portal. The uncertainty I’d felt, then. The fear. The

hesitation.

Now, it was much like that, only ten times worse.

I was afraid of what I’d see and what I might have to face.

At last, I stepped in.

My vision wavered.

All grew dark.

As soon as I arrived in the Overworld, I began sprinting.

At ﬁrst, everything looked normal. Trees. Tall grass.

Hills and mountains, rivers and valleys.

Within hours,

I found a village—

or what looked like one to me.…

I sniﬀed around every building.

Not picking up any villager scent,

I thought.

Whatever

happened here must have happened days or even weeks

ago.

Yet, within minutes, I caught two new scents. One was

human, the other villager. I soon heard them

approaching so I hid in some tall grass nearby.

(My Creep ability must have turned me mostly invisible, as

they didn’t seem to notice me.)

The human had spiked yellow hair and brown armor,

and he carried a sword on his back. The villager had a

huge nose and carried two swords on his back, one

sword slightly smaller than the other.

“I can’t believe this,” the villager said. “It’s just like

the last one I saw.”

“Get used to it,” the human said. “Every place I’ve

come across has been like this. Or worse.”

The villager suddenly seemed so angry. His rage

quickly subsided, however, and he gazed at the ruins in

sorrow.

“C’mon,” the human said. “Let’s look around and see if

there’s anything we can salvage. And stay alert. You

wouldn’t believe the stuﬀ that’s out here.”

“I’d believe. I’ve fought a few myself.”

“Really? Hey. Why are you out here, anyway?”

“I was exiled.”

“What’d you do?”

“I made a wrong decision.… It’s a long story.”

“They at least gave you a weapon or something, right?

Some tools?”

“None. I’d dropped all my stuﬀ earlier. That ﬁrst night, I

was jumped by ten husks while trying to dig an

emergency shelter.”

“Ouch. Did you even have a sword at that point?”

“No. Just a wooden shovel.”

“You fought ten husks with a wooden shovel? How’d you

manage that?”

“I just managed.” The villager paused. “Why are you out

here?”

“Because of this.” The human withdrew a piece

of paper from his inventory. “Found it in some ruins a few

days ago. In a library. It leads to a cave ﬁlled with

adamant.”

“What’s adamant?”

The human sighed. “I think you’ve been holed up in that

village of yours for way too long. Maybe getting exiled

wasn’t such a bad thing, huh? Anyway, I’ll show you the

ropes. Just stick with me.” He drew his sword.

“C’mon. That cave isn’t too far from here. We’ll search

this place ﬁrst then hit the cave afterward.”

“All right,” the villager said. “By the way, you never told

me your name.”

“Just call me S,” the human said.

“S? That’s it?”

“Well, I know my name starts with an S. I can’t seem to

remember the rest, though. Anyway, let’s go.”

They took oﬀ.

Of course, I wanted to reveal myself and speak with

them, but they looked a little dangerous.

Once they were far enough away, I took out my

compass and left the ruins, heading east again. For the rest

of the day, the only thing I found of interest was ﬁre. A

forest ﬁre.

In my dreams, I heard voices.

The voices of two girls.

“Dude. Scouting is totally lame. Nothing has happened for

days!”

“It’s what we’ve been tasked with, Emerald. It’s for the

safety of

our village.”

“Yeah. I know. I just miss hot baths, y’know? I’m totally

caked in grime, these new boots are hurting my feet, and—

hey, look! Over there!”

“Is that an ocelot?”

“Looks like it. What’s up with the blur fur, though?"

“What were you saying about nothing interesting

happening?”

“I stand corrected. This is even more interesting than that

human girl showing up at our village. What’s her name

again?”

“ilovedragons1. Why do some of the humans have such

odd names?”

“Who knows. Hey, why isn’t this ocelot waking up?!”

Finally, as I felt something nudge me, my eyes ﬂew

open.

“He’s adorable!” the girl with greenish-blue hair

exclaimed.

“Is that even an ocelot?” the other girl asked. “Looks more

like a monster to me.”

“Whatever he is, I say we keep him.”

“Keep him?! Are you joking?! I thought you

didn’t like monsters, Breeze.”

“Wouldn’t a monster be attacking us by now?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s strange, though. I thought ocelots were afraid of

people? Has he already been tamed?” It took a moment for

the realization to hit.

Breeze?! The girl on the left is Breeze?! Is that some

kind of luck or what?!

I rose to all fours and yawned. “You don’t need to talk as

if I can’t understand you. I’m well versed in your

language.”

The girls jumped back. “Um, like, did he just …”

“You can really talk?” Breeze asked.

“Yeah?”

“Why do I feel things are about to get crazy around

here again?” Emerald said.

“I’ve been sent to ﬁnd a girl named Breeze,” I said.

“Also, two boys. One goes by the name of Runt. The

other is known as Pebble.”

The girls exchanged glances.

“I don’t understand,” Breeze said. “How do you know

about us?”

“Through our mutual friend. Batwing.”

Her smile faded.

Emerald sighed. “Um, is he talking about that skeleton

you’ve been dreaming about?”

“Yes.”

“Right. Shall we head back now and warn the mayor of

impending craziness the likes of which we’ve never

seen?”

Breeze slowly nodded at her, before staring into my

eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Eeebs.”

“Nice to meet you, Eeebs. May I ask why you were

sent to ﬁnd us?”

“It’s a long story.”

“That’s ﬁne. Would you like to head back to our village

with us? You can tell us on the way.”

“Of course,” I said. “Oh, and now that you mention

it, I should say that I’ve been instructed to inform you of

something. Regarding your village.”

The girls exchanged glances again. “What is it?” Breeze

asked.

“All of you should leave before the moon is full,” I

said, “and head to the capital, as according to the

Prophecy … your village is about to be

annihilated.”

While searching for the village of Shadowbrook, I met two girls named Emerald and Breeze.

I told them about how I was sent to find them and how, according to the Prophecy, their

village would soon be destroyed.

Come to find out, I was never going to find Shadowbrook. It was Breeze’s home village, and it

was completely wiped out some time ago. She’s one of the survivors who fled.

“Wait,” I said. “Where are you taking me, then?”

“Villagetown. We believe it’s the last village still standing on this side of the continent.”

“Well, the humans say it’s not really a village,” Emerald said, “but a town. And maybe they’re

right, y’know? It’s changed so much.”

“It has.” Breeze turned away. We were standing on a large hill overlooking a river, and she pointed at

something far away. I’d never seen anything like it before.

“Is that some kind of tree?” I asked.

Breeze shook her head. “It’s one of our watchtowers. It also functions as a beacon. Our

builders constructed them around our village to help the scouts find their way back.”

“All we have to do is head in that direction and we’ll be home,” Emerald said. “Max came up with the

idea. A friend of ours. Actually, I guess Runt should get some credit for—”

I almost jumped when she said his name. “You know Runt?!”

“Of course,” Emerald said. “He’s part of our group. In fact, he should be with us right now.”

“Why isn’t he?”

“He’s currently being punished.” To my blank expression, Emerald sighed. “We recently graduated

from school, and the mayor gave us one last little school assignment. We had to write twenty

pages about our chosen profession. Now, I love my village and all, and I have absolutely zero

regrets about becoming a warrior, but dude … c’mon. Who wants to write twenty pages about

anything? Luckily, Runt thought of a way for us to avoid writing so much without breaking the

rules, and every other student copied Runt’s idea. Needless to say, the mayor wasn’t too thrilled

about that. Guess that’s why Runt is back to crafting potato-based food items.”

Resisting the urge to ask,

“What’s a potato?”

I nodded. “Hmm. Do you think I’ll be able to speak

with him?”

“Probably,” Emerald said. “That is, if the entire village doesn’t freak out upon hearing the bad news.

By the way, what kind of dragon is supposed to attack?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know what a dragon is.”

“…”

After the girls took me to their village, I was surrounded by so many people. No one seemed to be

afraid of me—not even the children:

“Is that really an ocelot?”

“It looks more like a monster!”

“Wow! Where can I get one of those?!”

“Thanks for the fish,” I said, to a human boy named LazyGiraffe. “An hour of sprinting can really

drain your food bar.”

“You can talk?!”

“Hey, what’s your name?!”

“What kind of ocelot are you, huh?!”

My introduction to Villagetown went pretty much like that.

A girl named Ophelia gave Breeze a hug. “Glad to see you back safely. What’s the deal

with this guy?”

“It’s complicated,” Breeze said.

Emerald laughed. “I’ll say. Just wait until you hear the news.” She turned to Ophelia. “Hey. Your

dad’s a librarian, right? Ever heard about something called the Prophecy?”

“I haven’t. Why?”

“Never mind.” Emerald glanced farther into the village. “I’m out. Time for a bath. See you guys at

the meeting?”

Ophelia blinked. “What meeting?”

But Emerald only winked before taking off.

“Um, okay?” The yellow-haired girl turned to Breeze. “What’s going on?”

“Seems like this kitten came from a city of monsters,” Breeze said. “Good ones.” She reached

down and scratched my neck. “Isn’t that right?”

“I don’t consider myself to be a monster,” I said, “but yes. You are correct.”

“So, why are you here?” Ophelia asked me.

“Have you ever heard of someone known as a Savior?”

“No?”

“How about Chosen Ones?”

“Um …”

The other villagers looked just as confused.

Moments later, a man known as the mayor approached, along with many serious-looking men in

black clothes.

“Breeze? What’s going on here?! And … what is that?!”

“We found him sleeping under a tree. He has a message for us.”

“Right.” The mayor stared at me without blinking for at least five seconds. “Um. Good work.”

One of the men in black robes threw something around my neck—I’d later come to learn that it was

a leash.

I hissed and tried running away, but whenever I moved more than five blocks away from my

captor, I flew back toward him.

Breeze moved up to the man. “Father, stop!”

He smiled slightly. His eyes were concealed by these weird-looking black things. “You know

what must be done.”

They hauled me away to a small, dark room and asked countless questions. The kind of questions

cautious people ask when a blue kitten suddenly shows up at their village.

Yes, it’s true. And their breath isn’t nearly as stinky as yours.

I told them everything, but they didn’t believe a word. No one had heard of the Prophecy,

and as for dragons …

“The Overworld hasn’t seen dragons for over a thousand years!” the man named Brio shouted.

“One kind of dragon still lives on, yes, but only in the third dimension!”

“All I know is what I’ve been told! The enderman gave me this book, and …”

After I talked about the book Greyfellow had loaned me, Brio brought in more villagers. They wore

white robes.

I came to learn that they were librarians and had in-depth knowledge of this world’s history.

Yet, none of them could recall ever reading about the Prophecy.

“What about these abilities you speak of?” the mayor asked. “Care to demonstrate them?”

“Sure.”

To their awe, I breathed fire, climbed a nearby cobblestone wall, and turned almost invisible when

standing still.

“If there was a pool of lava nearby,” I said, “I could go for a swim. I’m immune to fire, just like

the monsters that live in the Nether.”

Finally, I summoned my visual enchantment screen. Brio and the mayor recognized it

immediately. Amazingly, they had visual enchantments as well. They summoned them using

their mind, the same as I had.

“Almost every living being has them,” Brio said. “Yet, most are unable to access them. They must

be … unlocked.”

The two villagers closed their screens, and the mayor looked at mine, which was currently displaying

my enhancements. “What’s that?”

“The enderman enchanted me somehow,” I said, and held up my purple claws.

“Did he ask you to step into a metallic box of some kind?” Brio asked.

“You mean a rune chamber?”

“Yes.” Brio turned to the mayor. “Perhaps he speaks the truth?”

The mayor nodded. “Listen … Eeebs, is it? I’m going to call everyone in the village. We’re going to have

a meeting.”

“You’ll need to tell everyone what you’ve told us just now,” Brio added. For some reason, he was

smiling again in that strange way. “I suppose we’ll soon be making yet another alliance.”

The man named Drill spoke up. “Tell me this creature is joining our army. Please. I want this thing

on the front lines.”

“Perhaps he will.” Brio stopped smiling. “One last thing, kitten. Did that book mention the names of

the two Saviors?”

“Yes. But I forgot them. The enderman asked me to remember so many different things. The book

said that one of them was a human. Does that help?”

“Not exactly.”

An hour later, I stood in a fancy-looking area of Villagetown. A countless number of villagers had

gathered before me.

Wait, no. Roughly half of them weren’t villagers. They looked different … wore different

clothes. Perhaps they were the humans I’d heard about?

(Now that I think about it, I’ve seen villagers several times before, back when I was just a normal

kitten, but I don’t recall ever seeing humans until today. Where’d they come from?)

The mayor eventually introduced me and asked me to tell everyone the news.

I suppose it was strange for them to hear an animal speak.

Stranger still to hear me speak of a city filled with monsters willing to cooperate.

“The monsters I met know about magic,” I said. “They’re very smart. I believe both sides could

help each other.”

Of course, there were many who didn’t believe or trust me. Such as a young man who emerged

from the crowd. A human, I think? He looked up at the mayor and called out:

When I saw him, I could sense that there was something different about him. It was the same

feeling I got after meeting Greyfellow, Batwing, Brio, Breeze, Emerald.…

Still, he was different from even them. Stronger, maybe? Was the power I sensed due to him

being higher in level and possessing stronger abilities than the rest? I’m not sure.

“You certainly have a point,” the mayor said to this human. “We will discuss this at length and have

a vote.”

This caused a huge commotion. The crowd only grew louder when the mayor added: “Although

it’s hard to imagine, there may come a time when monsters live among us an—”

An old villager man glared at me and shouted, “The day I live alongside monsters is the day I make

my own village! I know how to dig! I’ll make an underground house and start a bat farm!”

More villagers joined in:

“I’m with you, Leaf!”

“Me too! This is madness!”

“No one’s even heard of this Prophecy!”

“If a dragon really does attack, we’ll be ready! We’ve already fended off thousands of

zombies!”

“Working with monsters?! How can anyone suggest such a thing?! Do you not remember the

attacks?!”

“No mobs allowed!” someone screamed.

“Yeah! No mobs allowed!”

Roughly half of the crowd began chanting this phrase. Then someone threw a carrot at me. This

was followed by some seeds, an apple, and, finally, a loaf of bread.

(I ate the bread, topping off my food bar, so the joke was on them.)

“Stop this at once!” the mayor shouted. “We cannot ignore what this animal has to say! If

there really are good monsters out there, we must consider forming an alliance!”

He left the raised platform and stood next to me. “Even though he is an animal, he appears to be

quite intelligent, and he will be treated with respect for as long as he stays here! Understood?”

There were many grumbles, weak attempts at protest. But just as many people walked up to me.

Including Breeze.

“I’d like to take him around and teach him more about our village,” she said to the mayor. “Is that

okay?”

“Only if Eeebs agrees to it.” He sighed. “Kitten, I’m sorry for their outburst. We’re a little

distrustful of monsters. That being said, do you really wish to stay here for the time being?”

“Why not? I like being held.”

“Very well. In the meantime, our librarians will do more research. We’ll see if we can shed some light

upon this mysterious Prophecy you speak of. And you’ll be able to speak with Runt after he’s …

through with his punishment.”

“Thank you.” I suddenly remembered the human’s words. “Sir.”

“I’m exhausted,” Breeze said to her father. “I’ll take him back to our house and show him

Villagetown tomorrow.”

As she turned around, holding me in her arms, she bumped into another person. A villager in a

dark red robe. A bunch of white hair hung from the lower part of his face, and he was wearing a

huge red hat and the same black things Breeze’s father wore. You couldn’t see much of his face.

“Sorry,” he said. “Forgive me, my lady.”

She stepped closer to him. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

“N-no, no. I … no, I don’t believe we’ve met before. Yes, certainly I’d remember a damsel such as

yourself!”

“What’s your name?”

“My name?” He paused. “Korbius!” He nodded profusely. “Yes, that’s my name! Korbius

Wijjibo!”

“I don’t recall ever seeing you in Villagetown before.”

“Of course not, for I am … a traveling merchant! Yes! A merchant who travels! That’s

meeee!” He bowed. “Would you like to trade?”

“No thanks.” Breeze lingered in front of him for a moment, her brow furrowed, then carried me off.

It was strange, the way she acted.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, still purring.

“Nothing.” She glanced back at him. “Guess I’m just paranoid.”

When we entered Breeze’s house, I was shocked at how small it seemed. Compared to Greyfellow’s hut, it

was tiny. Her bedroom was five blocks wide.

I sat down on the carpet. “Is it really so hard to believe that good monsters exist?”

“We’ve been through a lot,” she said. “Monsters attacked several times already, and some of us were

… well … we’ve lost people.”

“I’m sorry. Then I guess I can understand why they’re so distrustful.”

I sniffed around and saw a book lying on top of a raised flat surface. It was a diary, just like

mine.

Where did she learn how to

draw

like that? I’m so

jealous.

She rushed over and closed the diary before I had a chance to really look at the drawing. Her

cheeks were so red!

“That’s Runt, right?”

“Yes. You’ve … seen him before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. Using one of these.” I withdrew the tellstone from my inventory and told her about it.

“That explains a lot,” she said. “I was beginning to think Herobrine was behind those dreams.

Maybe we could use this tonight to speak with Runt?”

“Maybe. Batwing said his tellstone didn’t always work, though. Tellstones should be able to

communicate with anyone, sleeping or not. But they’re hard to craft. The enderman is still

working on perfecting them.”

“Well, if it doesn’t work, you can always speak to Runt in person. He’ll be free in a few days.”

“Do they always punish him like that?”

“No, it’s just … he’s a captain, now. A leader. Kind of. So the mayor wants him to set a good

example. A lot of the younger kids look up to him now.”

“Oh.”

Later that night, we tried using the tellstone.

I pictured Runt in my mind, but nothing appeared. Then, for some reason, I thought of that villager

I’d seen yesterday. The crystal immediately lit up:

The images disappeared. The purple gleam returned to the crystal’s surface. I pawed the tellstone

every which way, but the images wouldn’t return.

(I’m not positive on this, but I believe he was having a

nightmare

and woke up, which

severed

the

tellstone’s connection.)

“That was Pebble,” Breeze said. “So … did we just witness his dreams or something?”

“I think so.”

“Didn’t think he was still alive.”

“He is,” I said. “I saw him yesterday. Before I met you.”

“Where?”

“In some ruins. He was with a human. They were searching around for a cave.”

“So, he really did survive.…” She said something after this, but so quietly, as if speaking to herself.

“He must have learned how to use abilities, too.”

Well, I think that’s what she said.

Or did I just imagine her saying that?

Breeze gave me a tour of the village today.

While we walked through the streets, I noticed these large pieces of paper called “posters.” They

were everywhere. Someone must have put them up last night.

“Seems like at least a few people haven’t forgotten the meeting,” I said.

“It was hard enough getting everyone to agree to let humans stay here. I’m not so sure we’ll ever

be able to form an alliance with monsters.”

“Well, we’ve got to try. They’re really so nice. You’d like them.”

We soon forgot about the posters, because a villager in white robes ran up to us.

Max. He’s a warrior like Breeze, but he once had interest in becoming a librarian.

“I’ve read nearly every book in the village,” he said, “and found nothing relating to the

Prophecy. However …”

He held up a book

(History of Minecraftia, Volume II)

and turned to somewhere in the middle.

“Look. Someone tore out three pages.”

Breeze ran her fingers across the jagged edges. “Why would they do that?”

Max shrugged. “Maybe it said something about the Prophecy? But who would want to hide that?

The mayor?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Breeze said. “Wait. Where did you get this book?”

“The main library. I’ll go there again tomorrow and double-check for any other books that might

have been tampered with. Wanna join me?”

“Sorry. Today’s my only day off this week, and I’m supposed to show Eeebs around.”

“It’s cool. Emerald’s off tomorrow. I’ll ask her.” He glanced at me. “Really wish you could’ve brought

that book you were talking about.”

“I could always go back for it,” I said.

“You might have to,” Max said, “if nothing turns up.”

Max then took off, and Breeze showed me so many different places.

It almost felt like someone was watching us. But I didn’t see anyone.… One street had something

really weird. A villager did something known as a “farming fail.”

Hours later, as Breeze explained the combat cave to me, that Drill guy ran up to us.

He screamed so loudly, asking Breeze if she was done accompanying “His Royal Fuzziness”

around. Was he talking about me?!

“You want a little tour of our village, huh?” He pointed down a street. “See all those people building

and farming!? That’s called hard work! You’ll be joining them if you wanna stay here! Now

march!”

Drill thinks I need to be trained. Long story short, I’ve been asked to help out. If I want to stay here,

I must become a useful member of the village.

They seem to think I’d make a great scout. That means exploring beyond the wall. But scouts

should know all the basics, such as mining, crafting, and farming.… It’s dangerous, being

a scout. They say the monsters outside are growing stronger. It’s an important job, too, because scouts

are supposed to search for resources like iron.

It seems that iron is really important to these villagers. They use it to make weapons, armor, tools,

and even defenses such as doors and gates. The problem is that iron comes from the ground, and

they’ve already mined most of the ground beneath the village. They say they don’t want to go any

deeper because it’s too dangerous.

Food is also a concern. A large number of humans arrived some time ago. The farms here can

produce only so much food. Right now, people are consuming more than can be grown. So they

need to make more farms. They’ve used up almost all the land within the walls, though, which means

they must start farming outside.

As we followed Drill through the streets, he kept yelling at random villagers, telling them to build

faster, work harder:

“You’re lollygagging like Stump in a kitchen! Like Runt at the ice cream stand! Like Emerald in the

Clothing Castle!” In a much calmer voice, he said, “In fact, I bet that’s where I’ll find her. Come on,

kitten. Let’s go say hello to your new teacher.”

I saw Brio and the mayor at one point. They were yelling at workers as well. The word “efficiency”

was often brought up.

Efﬁcient use of space. Proper building techniques. What are they talking about?! I don’t even know

what a crop is!

Later on, Drill took us to this place called the Clothing Castle. Apparently, Emerald really does spend

a lot of time there.

“How did I know I’d find you here?” Drill said.

Emerald glanced sideways to the left and right without moving her head. “Oh! Are you talking to

me? Need some fashion advice, huh?”

“Hardly. Since Breeze will be scouting tomorrow, and since you’re off tomorrow, you’ll be the

first one to teach this kitten. Help him get up to speed. Show him how to farm.”

“What? But I was supposed to go fishing and—”

“What’s that? You said you’re ready to do five thousand laps around the combat yard?”

She flashed a smile. A nervous one. “Did I say fishing?! It’s been a long day! What I meant was

I’d be honored to teach Eeebs! Where should I begin?”

Emerald taught me how to farm today.

I personally think it went very well, but she seems to think otherwise.

Hey, it’s not my fault. Her instructions weren’t very clear to me. As if a kitten would know

anything about planting seeds!

“Dude! Don’t be in such a rush! You need to place seeds in farmland!”

She took me to a grassy area where she demonstrated how to use this farming tool called a

“hoe.”

Standing on my hind legs again, I turned three blocks of grass into farmland and planted some

seeds. I felt so proud of myself. She didn’t, though.

“Farmland should be close together,” she said. “There’s no need to have it all scattered around

like that.”

“Right.”

“Dude? Where’s the water? You really need to listen!”

She told me again about how crops need to be watered, or irrigated. Otherwise, they won’t grow

nearly as fast.

I did pretty well, all things considered. She gave me a bucket, and I scooped up some

water. I just forgot about the “digging a hole for the water” part.

A minor setback, nothing more!

“I’ve seen a lot of farming fails, but wow. Just wow.”

“Isn’t diversity a good thing, though?”

All right, I’ve got this farming stuff ﬁgured out. BRB, time to ace the rest and become the ultimate

farming champion.

“Come on! Crops need light to grow! You can’t just build a wall around them!”

“Okay! Okay! I’m sorry! I just want to talk to Runt, okay? It’s part of my quest! I can’t stop

thinking about it!”

“Yeah? Do you have any idea what they’ll make us do if they catch us sneaking up to him? You’ll

see Runt when he’s no longer crafting baked potatoes, okay? Just follow the rules!”

“Fine!”

Using a pickaxe, I began tearing down the wall.

“Good kitten. Now, what you should do is build a fence. Here, I’ll place the crafting table again

and …”

For the first time today, Emerald smiled. “Good job.”

“How about a hug, huh? Or you can just scratch my chin. I’m not picky.”

“I’ll pet you once we’re finished. Now listen up. Okay, so, crops need light, right? But what happens

when the sun goes down? How can you provide light for your crops during the night? Any ideas?”

“I think so.”

Emerald facepalmed. “We’re done for the day. And tomorrow, Stump will be teaching you how

to craft, not me.”

“Okay. By the way, where’s my hug?”

“As if! Hurmmph!”

Emerald stormed off. Later, a nice girl named Lola taught me how to shoot this weapon called a

“bow.”

The other villagers say she used to be very unskilled, but she’s recently shown promise. She

also crafted a hat out of a creeper she dropped in the wild.

Nessa “Lola” Diamondcube

from Noob Extraordinaire to Scout First Class.

This morning, I met the villager known as Stump. One of Runt’s best friends.

He wasn’t too happy about having to teach me on his day off. Part of the problem was that I kept

eating the crafting ingredients.

He called me a walking garbage can, because according to him, it’s not even possible to eat some

of those ingredients. Our time together can be summarized by a single picture:

(I’d include pictures of my various crafting fails, but at this point, I’ve become somewhat embarrassed

of my complete lack of skill.)

I guess Stump takes his crafting seriously—especially food items like cakes—so when I basically

decorated the floor with ingredients, his anger only grew.

Luckily, Max interrupted us before long. He just burst through the door, muttering something

about books and libraries and the biggest mystery the village has ever seen.

Seconds later,

we were out the door.

Max took us to one of Villagetown’s libraries—the biggest one in the village.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research here,” he said, leading us past the bookshelves. “I found a book

with missing pages in one of the back rooms.… But I didn’t notice the carpet until this morning,”

he said.

Stump glanced around. “What’s wrong with it? Besides that awful orange color, I mean.

Seriously, who decorated this place?”

Max walked farther into the room, then stopped. “Come over here.”

We followed. As an animal who’d only just learned how to farm, I had no idea what was going

on. But then, I didn't feel too bad, because Stump didn’t seem to understand either.

Max pointed at the floor.

Carpeting made from a sheep’s wool and dyed bright orange.

That should have been nothing more than a decoration, something placed over cobblestone.

“Feels a little soft,” Stump said, stepping on to one section of the carpet. “Spongey, really. Almost

like a cake. What, is there nothing underneath?”

Max mined the carpet up with his bare hands.

Max thinks it’s been here for a very long time.

What sat inside were more bookcases, a chest filled with all kinds of papers and scrolls … and a

massive tome, lying on a table.

Although it looked like nothing more than a large book with a dark gray cover, there was

something about it—the more I stared, the more I sensed the power it contained.

Max lifted the tome up in a way that suggested an immense weight. Record of Aetheria was

its name. “It just goes on and on. It’s over five hundred pages long.”

“Five hundred pages?!” Stump moved closer and eyed it suspiciously. “Of what?”

“The history of the world. The Prophecy, too. And guess who’s name is in here?”

“Breeze?”

“No. Kolb.”

I zoomed over to take a better look at the tome. “He’s one of the Saviors, right?”

“Apparently. I’m wondering why he never told us?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know?” Stump said.

Max shrugged. “It gets weirder. One of the things I’ve read … we’re supposedly controlled by some

kind of guiding force called AI.”

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

Max turned to the first page. “There’s also this.”

“Whoever wrote this clearly didn’t want Herobrine reading it,” Stump said. “That must be why it

was stashed here. But who wrote it?”

Max turned to the next page.

“We have to ask Kolb about this,” Stump said. “He has to know something.”

Max nodded. “I’ll go see if I can find him. You two wait here. And Eeebs? Wipe that sugar off your

nose. Seriously, man. Are you a kitten or a pig?”

Ten or so minutes later, Kolb entered the cramped little room.

“There’d better be a good reason for bringing me down here,” he said. “I really—” He paused when

he saw me. “Oh. So it’s about that. How many have you told, kitten?”

“No one. I couldn’t remember your name.”

“So you already know?” Max asked.

“Yeah.”

“Can you please just tell us what’s going on?” Stump asked.

The human sat down on a bookcase. “I can tell you what I know. Of course, for the safety of

your village, you must promise never to tell anyone else. Not even the mayor. Agreed?”

Two villagers and a kitten nodded their heads in unison.

Kolb sighed. “You know, I used to laugh at myself for talking with what I once considered to be

NPCs. But now … whatever. Here it goes.”

And so, he told us his story.

The human named Kolb once lived in a world known as Earth.

His life was fairly boring back then. He went to school, did homework, studied. He also played

games.

The games he played utilized a technology known as virtual reality. You threw on a helmet-

like device, and it seemed like you were in another world.

His mom was always working, and he’d never known his father, so he often escaped into games to

not feel so alone. His favorite place was a virtual reality Minecraft server called Aetheria.

That world is this world. Or used to be.

Max didn’t seem to believe him. “You’re telling me … we’re just game characters?”

“I don’t know,” Kolb said. “We still don’t know for sure. We’ve had countless arguments over this,

trying to figure it all out.”

“Well, what happened?” Stump asked. “You said this game you played was normal, right? Everyone

played it. So what changed? Why are all the humans always freaking out?”

“Umm … it’s like this.…”

The human then shared more of his story.

It was the year 2039, and his world was in a similar situation as our own: suffering from a

terrible war. One day, weapons capable of unparalleled destruction were sent through the air,

toward his homeland. When this was announced, he was alone.

In the eyes of many, the world was about to end. So Kolb, wanting to at least see his friends one

last time, entered the virtual reality world of Aetheria. To say goodbye.

There, he met his best friend, Ione, as well as one of the game’s administrators, Entity.

However …

With the world’s destruction just minutes away …

“I blacked out and woke up still in the game,” he said, “unable to log out. We call it the

event. Many of us think there’s a scientific explanation for what happened. Yet, just as many

believe in the impossible.”

Max looked up from the massive tome. “You mean magic?”

“Yeah. I guess so. I’ve never believed in that kind of stuff. Still don’t. Yet … some humans think

Entity is a wizard who whisked them away to safety just before the world ended.”

“So that’s why you guys have those arguments,” Stump said. “Some of you call yourselves

Believers, and others are Seekers. I never understood why until now.”

“If we really are game characters,” Max said, “does that mean we’re not really alive? We’re just

like … golems, or something? Following instructions of some kind?”

The human shrugged. “We’ve spent days discussing that. In the end, each of you seems very real, so

… it really is like the game magically came to life.” He sighed. “Look, guys. I’m just telling you what I

know, and what I know isn’t much. It took me a long time to come to terms with this. But I’ve finally

accepted it. It is what it is.”

“I don’t meant to interrupt,” I said, “but I’m starving. Maybe we could talk more over dinner?”

The other three looked at me as if I’d just asked if they wanted to help build a snow fort in the

Nether.

“It’s not even lunchtime,” Max said.

“Oh. What can I say? I’ve been living in the Nether. Having no sky kinda messes with your sense of

time.”

Stump retrieved a strange-looking item from his inventory and placed it on to one of the

bookcases. It had a familiar scent.…

I sniffed again. “What is that?!”

“A stormberry cake,” Stump said. “My finest creation.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get,” Kolb said. “All this new stuff … it doesn’t make any sense.”

“What do you mean?” Stump asked.

“Well …”

Kolb went on to explain that the game server, Aetheria, was drastically different from normal

Minecraft.

Minecraft had changed a lot since it was first created—thirty years and still going strong—

yet, the Aetheria server ran a mod, which further altered the game’s rules.

Stormberries were one of the countless new things the mod included. They grew on leaf blocks

arranged to resemble bushes. And these blue and yellow berries could be used to craft a variety of

different food items: stormberry cookies, stormberry tea, stormberry rolls and biscuits.…

“But not cakes,” he said. “That crafting recipe just wasn’t in the game’s code. Someone had

suggested it on the forums once, but Entity never programmed it in. Some of us figure that

whatever happened during the event not only trapped us inside but also somehow unlocked a beta

version of the server. A new update that Entity was working on.”

“You’ve lost me,” Max said. “All right, forget all that. What about you being a Savior?”

Kolb took a deep breath. “Entity added these things called quests. Like, you talk to a villager,

and the villager asks you to fetch him some lava or something. Boom, you’re on a quest. So you go

scoop up some lava in a bucket, give it to the villager, and he gives you a reward of some kind, and

the server rewards you with experience points, and the quest is complete. Right, anyway, um, I guess

I was given a special quest. Quests come in three different types. First, there’s your ordinary

quest. Simple ones like fetching a villager something. Then there are quest chains. You complete

one quest, it leads to another, which leads to another. Finally, you have quest trees. They’re more

complicated, nonlinear. Me being a Savior is all part of one big quest tree.”

“And what are you supposed to do?” I asked.

“I have to re-forge this.”

He pulled out a sword from his inventory. Its blade seemed to be broken.

“I recognize that metal,” Max said. “That rainbow effect … that’s adamant, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. This is Critbringer, one of the swords crafted by Entity thousands of years ago. He

gave it to me in-game before everything went black, said it was one of the most powerful

quest items ever made.”

Stump didn’t seem too impressed: “If it’s so powerful, why is it broken?”

“It’s just part of the lore. Entity wrote detailed history for the server. According to the story,

Herobrine tried to destroy the blade during the Second War. Now, seven fragments are

supposedly scattered across the world. Shards, they’re called. Upon finding one, I can forge it back into

the blade by re-crafting it. Each shard added will slightly upgrade the sword’s abilities. Damage and

on-hit effects, attack speed, all that. The problem is locating the pieces.”

“I saw one!” I blurted out. “A few days ago. In the Nether.”

I told him about Rarg and how he had taken EnderStar’s secret treasure horde.

The human listened intently. “I have to say, I’ve been too preoccupied with the events here. Perhaps I’ll

pay them a little visit?”

Max opened the huge tome again. “You mentioned something about Herobrine trying to destroy the

sword. Look. It’s all right here in this book.”

“That’s the lore.” Kolb moved over and flipped through the pages. “But it isn’t complete. The full

lore is over one thousand pages long. Entity wrote this stuff over two years ago. When he

became too busy with programming, he appointed several players as scribes to keep adding to

the story.”

“But you said Entity crafted that sword thousands of years ago,” Stump said.

“Right. After the event, it’s almost like whatever was written down in the lore became reality

here.”

(Um. Wow. Whenever I

level-up,

I really need to put more points into

Higher Intelligence,

because I

don’t understand much of anything.)

As far as I can grasp:

There was a virtual reality game on Earth known as Minecraft.

The world was coming to an end, so Kolb retreated into the game to say goodbye to his friends.

As their final hour approached, the event took place—everyone in the game blacked out and woke

up here, and the game mysteriously came to life?

I glanced at the stormberry cake. “Can I eat now?”

“Sure.” Stump handed me a slice. “Nothing better than home-crafted food.”

After a cautious sniff, I ate the slice in a single bite—and promptly spit out crumbs. “Is … that

… really … food?!”

That was Stump’s tipping point. He was already in a bad mood after I devoured half a stack of

his sugar

(sugar he crafted using his mom’s special recipe, a family secret passed down through the

generations),

but insulting his crafting like that? It was almost as if he was a creeper in a villager

costume ready to explode.

This morning, a boy named Bumbi taught me how to build.

At least, I think.

My goal was to build a chicken house behind the school.

(I think it’s called a “chicken coop,” but

Bumbi kept saying “chicken house.”)

Then he stopped giving me oak blocks. Because he ran out.

(Is he really a teacher? Shouldn’t a

teacher be more prepared?)

Luckily, he had some cobblestone.

When he ran out of that, he gave me some gravel. When he ran out of that, he gave me some

pumpkins.

Oak stairs are much better for roof building, he said. And when you run out of stairs, well …

you’d better use fence. Yeah, that’s it.

Oh, but wait! Every good chicken house needs a door, right?

Later on today, I caught up with Breeze again.

She could sense that something was wrong. She kept asking me what was on my mind.

And she knew that it was more than just that horrible building experience with Bumbi. She knew

it was something serious.

I wanted to tell her about what I’d learned yesterday with Kolb, but I’d promised not to say

anything. Are we really living in a game? Am I just one of its characters?

If I really am just a so-called NPC, how am I able to think and feel … ?

And what about my memories? My past life? Endless days just being a playful kitten—are all of

those memories false?

I’m determined to learn more about my existence. I want to know who I am. What I am. There

must be a reason for all of this. For this world. For me.

And suddenly I recalled what Rarg had said to me. Sometimes, he doesn’t feel real. I feel the same

way when I’m tired or stressed out. Could it really be that I’m nothing more than … ?

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Just had a … bad day.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

As we wandered through the streets, I noticed that strange old man again. Korbius.

Breeze spotted him, too. It was pretty hard not to, honestly. He was just ten blocks away, hiding

behind some flowers.

Breeze swiftly moved up to the rosebushes. “Why are you spying on us?”

The man stepped back, flustered. “What? Me? Spying on you?! Why no, I was simply …

admiring these flowers! Yes! I love flowers! I’m a real connoisseur!”

“Oh? Then tell me: What color is owl’s eye?”

“Well, hmm … I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of such a flower. Could it be that I’ve met someone more

knowledgeable about flowers than even myself? I find that hard to believe!”

“Just tell us why you keep following us,” Breeze said. “I saw you at the school. The Clothing

Castle, too.”

(Really? She must have fantastic eyesight, because I didn’t see him then. Although I did get the feeling

that someone

was

watching us.)

“Merely a coincidence,” he said. “After all, I am a traveling merchant. I’m always moving

around!”

“Whatever. See you around.”

When she said this, Korbius smiled and said, “Oh, yes. I will be seeing you again. Count on

it.”

Breeze stared at him for a moment, then turned to me. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What’s with that guy?” I asked. “Was he really following us?”

“Yes. Listen, I need to go speak with my father. Maybe you can go have a rest now that your

training is complete. See you back at the house?”

“Okay.”

“By the way,” she said, “my father agreed to let me adopt you.”

“Adopt? What is that?”

“It means my house is your house now.”

“Forever?”

She smiled. “Forever.”

Last night, I had horrible nightmares.

I kept dreaming about what that human had said.

And Runt. When will I meet him? What will happen once I do?

I woke up in the middle of the night and tossed and turned on the carpet of Breeze’s room. She

was stirring in her bed, perhaps having nightmares as well.

I’m not sure why, but … I tried using the tellstone again. When I did, a variety of images flashed

across the crystal’s surface, from many different people, in many different places.

Cube Kid is the pen name of Erik Gunnar Taylor, a writer who has lived in Alaska his whole life. A

big fan of video games—especially Minecraft—he discovered early that he also had a passion for writing

fan fiction. Cube Kid’s unofficial Minecraft fan fiction series,

Diary of a Wimpy Villager

, came out as e-

books in 2015 and immediately met with great success in the Minecraft community. They were published

in France by 404 éditions in paperback and now return in this same format to Cube Kid’s native country

under the title Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior. When not writing, Cube Kid likes to travel, putter with his car,

devour fan fiction, and play his favorite video game.